Australian Gun Culture Part 23: Numbers of Guns, Licenses, and Costs

By Dean Weingarten

By Dean Weingarten

Arizona -(Ammoland.com)- When surveying various articles about firearms and firearms ownership in Australia, I have read that the numbers cannot be known. I have had knowledgeable people tell me the same thing.

Only a year ago, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) published an important and informative report about illicit firearms. In the report, substantive information is given about firearms ownership and licenses in Australia.

The illustration is from the report. Over 1.16 million legal guns have been added to Australia’s private stock since the enormous cost and upheaval of the 1996 gun confiscation scheme.

The mandatory firearm confiscation/compensation turn-in resulted in the unnecessary destruction of 640,000 privately owned firearms. They were destroyed at a cost of about $500,000,000. They could have been sold on the U.S. market to recover much of the cost.

In the highly restrictive Australian licensing scheme, airguns are treated the same as shotguns and rimfire rifles. Since 1996, an additional 1.05 million air rifles have been added to the Australian stock.

There are now more than 2.89 million legally registered firearms in Australia. The number of individual firearms licenses is about 816,000 as of 2016, according to the …Read the Rest

Source:: AmmoLand