Australian PM announces gun buy-back plan, day of reflection following Bondi Beach shooting
By Hira Humayun, Laura Sharman, CNN
(CNN) — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a national buy-back scheme for firearms to “get more guns off our streets” following the Bondi Beach shooting.
Speaking at a press conference in Canberra on Friday, Albanese said the scheme would buy surplus, newly banned, and illegal firearms. The government would introduce legislation to help with the funding of the scheme and meet the cost with states and territories, he said.
Albanese also announced there would be a day of reflection for the victims on December 21, when flags on all New South Wales and Australian government buildings would be flown at half-staff, and a national day of mourning in the new year.
He also said the office of national intelligence had identified an online video feed from ISIS that “reinforces” that the shooting was inspired by the group.
Under the buy-back scheme, states and territories will be tasked with collecting the weapons and processing payments to individuals for surrendered firearms, while federal police will be responsible for destroying them.
“The terrible events of Bondi show we need to get more guns off our streets,” Albanese said, calling the plan the biggest gun buy-back since 1996.
“We expect hundreds of thousands of firearms will be collected and destroyed through this scheme,” the prime minister added.
Australia already has some of the world’s toughest gun restrictions and lowest gun homicide rates in the world. Restrictions were tightened almost 30 years ago after a lone gunman armed with semiautomatic weapons killed 35 people at the Port Arthur historic tourist site in Tasmania.
The massacre shocked the government of the day into action, and within two weeks, new laws dictated tough rules on who could and couldn’t own a gun. Authorities also launched a major gun amnesty and buy-back scheme at the time that removed more than 650,000 newly prohibited firearms from circulation.
However, Albanese said there are currently more than four million firearms in the country, more than at the time of the Port Arthur attack.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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