New South Wales in Australia is slated to begin a gun buyback scheme in November, the first state in the nation to kick off the program as part of the national response to a shooting spree that killed 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration in the state capital of Sydney, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Sunday. Albanese and New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said the scheme would start on November 2. People who return eligible firearms under the first phase would receive fixed compensation ranging from $450 to $1,000 per firearm, depending on the type.
A second phase will provide a valuation pathway for certain higher-value firearms, capped at $10,000 per firearm. Albanese's center-left government adopted new gun-control laws in January in the aftermath of the December 14 attack at a Bondi Beach Hanukkah celebration, including the gun buyback program and tighter firearms measures. New South Wales separately passed tighter state firearms laws in December, while the federal government also strengthened laws targeting hate speech and extremism.
The pair of alleged gunmen used firearms that were obtained legally. Australia's government said there were a record 4.1 million firearms in the country last year, including more than 1.1 million in New South Wales, its most populous state. AUSTRALIA VOWS TO STRENGTHEN HATE SPEECH LAWS, GUN CONTROL IN WAKE OF BONDI BEACH ATTACK "We must do everything we can to make sure the antisemitic terrorist attack in Bondi doesn’t happen again.
That includes meaningful nationwide gun reform," Albanese said in a statement. The initiative is set to be Australia's largest buyback since a similar effort following the 1996 massacre in Tasmania's Port Arthur, when a gunman killed 35 people. "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.
New South Wales generally limits individual firearm ownership to four guns under restrictions sparked by the Bondi Beach attack, with exemptions allowing certain license holders, including some primary producers, sport shooters and others with specified genuine reasons, to possess more firearms. It estimates that up to 274,000 registered firearms — about 24% of the total number of registered firearms in New South Wales — and about 50,000 license holders are affected by the new limits on gun ownership and reclassification of some types of firearms. VIRGINIA GUN SALES SPIKE AHEAD OF JULY 1 ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN SIGNED BY GOV.
SPANBERGER "After Bondi, we promised the people of New South Wales we would introduce the toughest gun laws in the country, and that’s exactly what we did," Minns said. "The next step is getting the guns that are no longer permitted under those laws out of circulation and permanently off our streets." "There are potentially hundreds of thousands of firearms affected by these changes," Minns added. "We want those guns handed in, compensated for and safely destroyed.
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