Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales, will launch a gun buyback scheme on November 2.
As reported by Reuters, the reform follows the mass shooting at Bondi Beach last December, which claimed 15 lives.
Albanese’s centre-left government enacted laws in January for the gun buyback, tighter checks for gun licences and a crackdown on hate in the wake of the December 14 gun attack at a Bondi Beach Hanukkah celebration in Australia’s most populous city.
The alleged gunmen used powerful firearms that were legally obtained. Australia had a record 4.1 million firearms last year, the government has said, with more than 1.1 million of those in New South Wales, its most populous state.
New South Wales has passed laws restricting individuals to owning a maximum of four guns (with specific exemptions for farmers).
Owners possessing more weapons than permitted under the new rules can surrender eligible handguns, shotguns, and rifles.
Financial compensation will range up to A$1,000 per weapon depending on the type, with funding split evenly between the federal and state governments.
While a nationwide buyback rollout previously stalled due to financial and implementation disagreements among states and territories, New South Wales is moving forward to remove hundreds of thousands of potential surplus weapons from the community
