Someone was commenting about how we in the USA should implement a gun buyback and draconian laws for new gun purchase such as Australia did after their Port Aurthur massacre in 1996. It does look good on paper but this is the same thinking that lead to the Volstead Act in 1919. All this did was to drive the sales of alcoholic beverages into the hands of the criminals.
Same thing in Australia - from Australia's The New Daily:
Spike in handgun crimes reveals nation’s secret problem
Australians may be more at risk from gun crime than ever before with the country’s underground market for firearms ballooning in the past decade.
Previously unseen police statistics show that the number of pistol-related offences doubled in Victoria and rose by 300 per cent in New South Wales. At least two other states also saw a massive jump in firearms-related offences during the same period.
An investigation by The New Daily unearthed previously unpublished data for firearms offences collected from police and crime statistics agencies in four states – Victoria, NSW, South Australia and Tasmania.
The statistics detail the types of firearms offences police have pursued in the courts in the past decade and show some concerning findings, including a massive 83 per cent increase in firearms offences in NSW between 2005/06 and 2014/15, and an even bigger jump in Victoria over the same period.
Taken together, the data suggests that despite our tough anti-gun laws, thousands of weapons are either being stolen or entering the country illegally.
The article then follows up with hard numbers. These numbers do not support the current anti-gun narratives floating around out there but these are the facts and they are damning to the narrative. All Australia has done is to drive the trafficking of guns out of the hands of legitimate dealers and into the hands of the criminal element. The illegal sales of guns are funding the criminals and allowing them to grow and expand into different areas of society.
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