Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Australian 1996 Firearm Confiscation

As I understand it, in 1996 the Australian government banned a large number of firearms, including all semi-auto rifles (including 22 rimfire) and semi-auto and pump action shotguns. What I'm wondering is how 'generous' the payments were when people were compensated for having to turn in their firearms? Was it an amount you would actually have been willing to sell for, if you had had a choice? Or was it simply a token payment so that the government could label it a 'buy back'?

I'd like to share a PM that I had with an Australian 2009 with ya'll.

Hi,
Congrats on a fun hunt.I had read where the guns were outlawed in Australia.I had found that hard to believe that the Aussie's would give them up without a fight.Please give me a basic heads up on what's happened with the guns in your country.There is some fear hear about new gun legislation that may hurt gun owners and their rights.
Thanks,
Mike Robertson

Hi Mike,
Thanks for the congrats. I really do enjoy hunting and find it quite cathartic.
Now, as to your question about gun laws. It's complicated. In order to own or even use firearms in Australia these days you must have a licence. The only allowed reasons for owning a long arm (rifle/shottie) is for target/trap shooting, vermin eradication, hunting and collecting. The only allowed reasons for owning handguns of any sort is for target shooting or collecting. But if you collect ANY sort of arm you can't shoot it. It is registered as a collector's piece and must me re-classified if you wish to shoot it. Stupid, right?
The licence categories more fully provide what we're allowed to own:

Category A - Air Rifle or Rimfire or Shotgun or Rimfire/Shotgun Combo NOT including self loading arms.
Category B - Muzzle Loader or Centrefire or Shotgun or Centrefire/Shotgun combo NOT including self loading arms.
Category C - Self Loading rimfire or Pump Action Shotgun but NOT self loading Shotgun.
Category D - Self Loading Centrefire or Self Loading Shotgun.
Category H - Air or Rimfire or Centrefire Handgun.
Collectors Licence - any of the above categories but specified with the licence.

These are for the NSW state firearms licence but most states follow similar systems.
Category A & B are open to any shooters so long as they have a place to shoot i.e. are rifle or trap or hunting club members or have permission from land owners or a combination of those.
Category C are only open to primary producers (farmers) for pest destruction and Category D are heavily restricted to professional hunters who destroy pests like pigs, goats, foxes, dingos and other animals where fast follow ups are desirable to destroy as many animals as possible.
Some trap and skeet shooters have got either a Cat C or Cat D for pump or self loading shotties for competition but few bother, instead favouring O/U shotguns.
But there are stupid loops.
Like most shooters aren't allowed pump action shotguns.......but we are allowed high powered pump rifles like the Rem 7600 range, including the Patrol models in 223 and 308 with the 10 shot AR14 mags?!
You can also buy a lever action 12g shotgun like those IAC copies of the old Winchester 1876(?) but not a pump gun?
Things get sillier though.
Off duty cops aren't allowed to carry a sidearm.....they don't trust them unless they're wearing their "costume of trust" (blue uniform)!
So at present things are a party for crims.
They've never run so many guns into Oz as they are now.
And the biggest irony is this......there were less firearms surrendered and/or bought back after 1996 than there were SKSs and SKKs ever sold in Oz.
That's right.....out there in sheds and holes and old mines and the like there must be cases of them sitting in grease.
But in spite of this there have been no shootings using AK47 style rifles since the ban so the people who had them before and did not hand them in have not sold them to drug dealers and gangs.
They were clearly safe with them in the first place.
The other significant irony is that practically all of the money given to gun owners who had to hand in their semi-autos was spent on NEW guns!
But you guys have the constitution on your side.
You can freeze legislation in litigation and stop them from doing major damage.
At the end of the day you have a right to bear arms and since that right doesn't say exactly what type or how many you guys are home free.
Fight it hard.
Regards
Andy

Deadkenny,

Well, first of all, yes we had no choice. But, the prices weren't bad. In some cases, they were quite good prices.

Apparently there are more registered firearms in Australia now than there were estimated to be in 1996. Interesting 'eh?

Some of the laws are just so dumb. I can't buy a pump action shotgun but a pump action 308 is easily obtainable? Huh

I am no sociologist, but I imagine the fact we were a convict state and not a free state like the US is a big factor in our meekness at accepting the oppressive firearms laws, in tandem with the willingness of a very large proportion of the population being happy to have no right to go armed.

I pretty much agree with the sentiments in the email above; the guy hits it on the head in that correspondence.

It was mental illness that killed those 35 poor sods at Port Arthur. Yep that was a tragedy of the most awful type. But that bloke should have been dealt with long before he got his hands on an SKS. I won't presume to know what should be done in the US, but it sounds like the folks with good heads over there have worked it out.

I wish you all the very best.

- Bob

First, I'd like to let you all know that my Dad lived in Australia and was married to a woman there for a while. I've always wondered if I hand any half Brothers or Sisters there. I remember all the media coverage of the ban. I've been following things here pretty closely and have written my legislators several times. We have a couple things going on right now. There was always an anti gun sentiment in parts of our government. The democratic party is pretty well documented. We had a "mass shooting" in a Colorado movie theater and one in an elementary school in Connecticut. The democrats have used this as their excuse to forward their agenda. Sen Feinstein in California put forth legislation to ban everything but single shots. VP Biden told women to buy double barrel shotguns for self defense and to go out side and fire both barrels in the air and watch the criminals run. We are screwed because it's been a long time since the best and brightest among us have been called upon to lead.

Here in R.I., they have voted to ban all semi autos in the city of Providence. Right now, the Governor wants to charge $100 each gun to register every gun in the State. New York and Connecticut next door have proposed and passed some pretty radical legislation. Beyond even what is trying to be pushed on the Federal level. They are deciding what kind of guns we are allowed to have. There are bad guns, you know! Magazine restrictions. Background checks. National registration. The Constitution was written after our fight with the British. The founding Fathers thought it would be prudent to protect the rights of the citizenship to rise up and overthrow the government if it no longer served their will guaranteeing them the right to keep and bear arms. The government that is afraid this might happen is trying to disarm the public, or at least ensure they are outgunned. I'm seeing it in my lifetime, and I'm afraid it will get worse. Government will get bigger. We will get more dependent on it (no choice) and it will get worse.

It might be worth noting that despite the 1996 buyback and the removal of semi autos etc in Australia, parts of the country - Sydney in particular - are suffering more gun related violent crime than ever.

And surprise (not), those crimes are almost without exception committed by unlicensed shooters with unregistered and unlawfully obtained firearms.

Be wary too of gun registries. If their info holdings are leaked or sold they will form a nice shopping list for burglars or robbers looking to steal some guns.

As I said above, what happens over in the US is not my business and I would never presume to advise; but here in this country, I think we didn't get it right in 1996.

Hell, if your profile pic is anything to go by, I reckon I might be one of 'em!

Figures I found were that the Aussie government spent $500,000,000 collecting 600,000 firearms. Saw photos of literal dump-trucks full of basically duck hunting guns headed for disposal.

The main thing to keep in mind is that this sort of confiscation program was only possible thanks to a gun registry being place, as was also the case in Britain when they banned, and then confiscated, handguns.

During the 2006 election up here, then Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, his campaign in shambles and on his way to defeat, pulled an election promise out of his ass at the last minute in which his next government would similarly ban (and then confiscate) handguns in Canada.

That's the truth of all too readily convenient gun registries: They enable asinine knee-jerk reactions by politicians...more specifically LEFTIST politicians...trying to play hero to the usually ignorant masses.

NEVER, EVER FORGET: Registration = Confiscation!!!!!!! ALWAYS!

Fortunately, we finally elected a Conservative majority government up here, who immediately scrapped the POS registry.

Pay attention to this, it is important.

Any (especially left wing) politician pumping gun registration, who usually will say, "Trust us! We don't want your guns!"...

Just immediately assume he's a stinking, lying bastard, and that's exactly what he wants.

Then you can't go wrong.

I generally follow "if their mouth is open they are a crook" rule.

Regarding the price paid out for the banned guns. I know personally of one bloke that handed in his semi auto firearm and had enough money to go out and buy two new bolt actions. He thought it was great as he hadn't fired the semi auto for years and ended up with two new guns which got him all keen again and back into the shooting sports.

That's too bad. Its a damn shame when someone is happy to seemingly come out ahead in a situation where his friends and neighbors end up getting sold down the river. When dealing with this sort of situation its much easier on one's conscience to stand with one's friends and neighbors and resist rather than go along because it benefits you personally. Some issues are bigger than your own personal interests. What makes your friend think that somewhere down the road they won't be coming for his bolt guns? The liberals understand how to eat an elephant. One bite at a time.

The bottom line is that Elvis' friend didn't have a choice anyway. By not surrendering the semi auto he would have been committing a crime.

The dumb thing is it cost so much money to gather and destroy so many guns that were never likely to be used in a crime. The crooks kept their favourite handguns and Mini 14s.

Whether it was knee jerk or otherwise, it is not about deaths. If it was, we would have banned cars in Australia long ago as they take more lives than guns every year. The amount of guns involved in crime these days are those stolen from law abiding citizens, not imported as the media would have you believe.

If you want to solve the violent crime problem, solve the drug problem & lack of funding for mental health. If we continue to ban bikie gangs we are only attacking the supply side of the problem. Kids needs to be educated that drugs will mess them up sooner or later. If demand wasn't so high etc etc you can join the dots.

So there you go, I have typed very little about guns or type of guns. They are simply the tool used in what is fundamentally a bigger and more troublesome issue or series of issues for society to deal with. Firearms really aren't the causal, but rather dependent side of the correlation.

Maybe we'll someday recognize that people are free to make dumb decisions and pay their consequences. The rest of us don't need to suffer in the meantime.

To all the Aussies,

Thanks for all the info--which pretty much follows the pattern of registration/ban laws everywhere: No impact on firearms crime, but a lot on individual freedom.

Oz is one of the few places left on Planet Earth I really want to visit and hunt and haven't. Hope to make it soon, especially up north!

I rememeber a time going into Mick Smiths Sports store, The Shooters Home and several others in George Street Sydney, which is the equivalent of PaAk Avenue New York and stepping onto the foot path outside the store to look through a scope and no-one cared. We were all good people.

When I left that socialist heaven, I used to have the category A+B license. Although I owned, reviewed and used quite a few semi auto's over the years, I never took to them for my own use. The licensing system made it more difficult to receive and return test rifles for review also, so I was primarily a bolt action man.

Some of these posts put the cart before the horse, let me explain.

The firearms legislation introduced was around in the 80's when Bob Hawke was Prime Minister. There were 2 massacres in the late 80's that nearly caused this to be introduced but Hawke loved being loved so did not use it.

The 2 incidences in the late 80's included one in Melbourne,a post office I recall in Victoria, and one in Strathfield in Sydney, NSW. The Strathfield killings, which took place in a mall incidently, full of the usual unarmed citizens, included several killed by machette.

As you know, machette's don't look good when you have an agenda for firearms control and confication.

The Oz political environment is made up of two left wing government choices. The "liberal" Party is left center and the "Labour" Party is further left. This doesn't help center right politics.

When Martin Bryant demonstrated his insanity at this horrible time in Oz history, the newly elected John Howard, who was never really "anti" gun, had a wife Janet, who was, introduced he banning of all semi-auto's including rimfires and shotguns.

There was a 6 month amnesty to hand them in and recieve compensation up to around full retail pricing. Some dealers got cause handing in slow moving inventory stock which made it interesting but the registration came after and took a while to implement. It was also expanded to rifle components such as barrels, actions and fully operational rifles.

The get a licence, you had to justify the "need". Joing a gun/shooting/hunting club was enough but we all know the youth of the day was notably less in the percentage of firearms owners and that was the real long tern target as the object was to make "new" users, go through more hoops that the dinosaurs who were current owners and users.

The Aussie hunting climate is far different to the rest of the world becuase the majority of animals hunted are not native species. This means vermin or feral depending who you speak with.

Taking several rifles and a hundreds of rounds on a week long feral hunt was "normal".

Today, my Aussie mates still hunt and still own several rifles with 5-10 common, plus all the handloading gear. Never knew a factory round user in my life over there.

In the end, I learned that left leaning politicians are liars that will never, ever, stop trying to disarm and control their constituents.

I certainly didn't immigrate to the Land of the Free to tollerate another leftist politicial threaten my "Legally aquired private property.

Learm that one....."LAPP"......"Legally Aquired Private Property".

Any politician who legislates to turn an honest person into a criminal is not "my" representative.

John

Good on you. The problem here is that just as during the Vietnam War a small vocal minority gets all the face time on the daily news and ends up with much more political power than they deserve. That weakens us. You can't fight fanatical belief with logic. They just won't listen. The pandering politicians eager to keep their seats in congress lap it up and spread the dis-information. Its all about political power. The more vocal you are the more the political congress critters will back you in their quest to retain their political power no matter how ignorant or wrong you are. They don't give a rat's ass whether you're right or wrong but only how well what you and they are saying plays to the polls.

In truth around 80% of murders are young black males killing other young black males. It is a social problem, not a "gun"
problem but no one will talk about it.

I'm surprised that Planned Parenthood isn't on the side of firearms. After all this is nothing more then retro active birth control.

Jim