Australia’s New South Wales state will start a semi-automatic rifle buyback in November, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Sunday, part of the national response to a shooting spree that killed 15 at a Jewish festival in Sydney, the state capital.
Background
Albanese’s centre-left government enacted laws in January for the semi-automatic rifle buyback, tighter checks for gun licences and a crackdown on hate in the wake of the December 14 gun attack at a Bondi Beach Hanukkah celebration in Australia’s most populous city.
The alleged gunmen used semi-automatic rifles that were legally obtained. Australia had a record 4.1 million firearms last year, the government has said, with more than 1.1 million of those in New South Wales, its most populous state.
The buyback is to be Australia’s largest since a similar campaign after a 1996 massacre in Tasmania’s Port Arthur, in which a gunman killed 35 people.
Buyback Details
Albanese and New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said in a statement the scheme would start on November 2 and that people returning rifles and handguns would be eligible for up to A$1,000 ($700) compensation per firearm.
“Australians are quite rightly proud of our gun laws, but the fact is there are more guns in Australia today than there were at the time of dealing with the Port Arthur gun buyback,” Albanese said in televised remarks.
Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
