More than 50,000 illegal guns recovered in Australian amnesty
More than 50,000 firearms will be destroyed by Australian police after being handed in during a three-month firearm amnesty.
The final figures, released on Friday, showed that the number of surrendered firearms doubled in the final month of the amnesty from 25,999 to 51,461 by September 30.
Almost half were surrendered in New South Wales, which received 24,965 firearms despite collecting a further 67,323 in three other gun amnesties since the first national one in 1996.
Queensland collected 16,000 firearms, after collecting and destroying 4,835 in two earlier state-based amnesties, while Victoria received 3,654.
South Australia received 2,648 firearms, significantly less than the 5,472 collected during a state-based amnesty that began in December 2015 and ended just before the national amnesty began. The state had collected and destroyed 13,252 firearms between the end of the first national amnesty in 1996 and the start of this year’s.
Western Australia and Tasmania, which had already announced their figures, received 1,242 and 1,924 firearms respectively.
The Australian Capital Territory collected 709, and the Northern Territory received 322.
There are still an estimated 260,000 unregistered guns not accounted for, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said.
Speaking to the media with Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin and justice minister Michael Keenan in Sydney, Turnbull said it was “vitally important” that Australia maintain its gun control laws, which were introduced following the Port Arthur massacre in 1996.
“We have seen the shocking tragedy in Las Vegas,” Turnbull said. “The killer there had a collection of semi-automatic weapons which a person in his position would simply not be able to acquire in Australia. We have strict gun control laws, but we don’t take anything for granted, we’re not complacent about it.”
An audit of firearms legislation in Australia found that no state or territory was fully compliant with the National Firearms Agreement (NFA), negotiated through the council of Australian governments in the weeks following the Port Arthur massacre, and warned that Australia’s much-lauded gun control laws were at risk of being eroded.
The report, released by Gun Control Australia on Thursday, found that no state and territory had enacted in full all 10 resolutions of the NFA, which had no power except as an agreed set of principles. The NFA was reviewed and updated last year.
Turnbull said the amnesty, which was announced as part of that review, would help keep Australians safe.
“Every single one of those 51,000 guns could have been used in a crime where Australians could be killed,” he said. “Now they can’t. They’ve been collected and they will now be destroyed.”
He dismissed the opposition’s suggestion that the gun amnesty be extended, saying its success was because it was open only for a defined period.
