By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
New South Wales (NSW) in Australia has announced it will launch another gun buyback Nov. 2, as part of the state’s response to the massacre at Bondi Beach in Sydney last Dec. 14, which killed 15 people.
Disregarding the fact that this was an act of terrorism by a father-and-son duo, and that the guns were legally obtained, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and NSW Premier Chris Minns announced the date Sunday, according to Reuters and NBC News.
The buyback program will offer up to $1,000 Australian dollars for rifles and handguns (about $700 U.S. currency) in the effort to reduce the number of privately-owned firearms in the country.
But will it solve anything? The attack occurred during the annual Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach. The father-son suspects, according to details at Wikipedia, are identified by authorities as Sajid Akram and his son, Naveed Akram. Sajid was fatally shot by responding police. His son, now in custody, was wounded and is now facing trial.
The Islamic State subsequently claimed credit, and Wikipedia reports the attack was “inspired by” the Islamic State.
Even Albanese has acknowledged this was a targeted attack.
Nation Thailand news is reporting the most recent report on registered firearms in Australia is 4.1 million. There is no Second Amendment-protected right to keep and bear arms in Australia, and an estimated 1.1 million of the known registered guns are in New South Wales.
Albanese is quoted stating, “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.”
The April 28, 1996 massacre at Port Arthur in Tasmania, the island state offshore from the southeast Australian mainland, left 35 people dead. It was the largest mass shooting in modern Australian history and led to an immediate crackdown on lawful gun ownership, even though the gunman, Martin Bryant, was identified as the perpetrator.
U.S. gun prohibitionists have often pointed to Australian gun control as the “model” they prefer over having to abide by the Second Amendment protections of American gun ownership.
According to Nation Thailand news, “New South Wales has also introduced a limit of four firearms for most individuals under reforms adopted after the Bondi Beach attack.” There is no limit on the number of firearms a U.S. citizen can legally own, and many firearms collectors may legally own scores, if not hundreds, of guns. Ironically, Nov. 2 is a Monday, the eve of the midterm elections here in the U.S., and one of the major concerns among gun owners here is preventing anti-gun Democrats from taking control of Congress, and subsequently pushing new gun control measures, and interfering with federal gun law reforms now in progress under the Trump administration.
