How Disarming Law-Abiding Citizens Doesn’t Work: Australian Commission Forced To Admit “We’ve Got An (Illegal) Gun Problem”

By James England

In 1996, a horrible tragedy occurred in Tasmania. A lone criminal killed 35 people in what is now known as the Port Arthur Massacre. Reeling from the sheer magnitude of an event that is altogether uncommon, Australian politicians near unanimously moved to restrict the possession of firearms by law-abiding citizens. Under an amnesty program launched later that year, law-abiding Australians were forced to register their guns and — in many cases — turn them over for confiscation to the state.

Under the National Firearms Programme Implementation Act 1996, citizens were restricted from owning many types of semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, and pistols. The buy-back program sought to purchase these firearms back from citizens at or near cost. The program is credited with buying back somewhere around 650,000 firearms at a cost of $230 million AUS dollars.

However, according to back-to-back annual reports completed in 2013 and 2014 by the Australian Crime Commission, it appears over a half a million firearms remain in the ‘grey’ or illicit marketplace. These were predominantly credited as being used by criminals but, in all honesty, anyone in possession of any unregistered firearm in Australia is considered to be in violation of the law.

The buy-back program in …Read the Rest

Source:: Concealed Nation