Debate Desk
Should America Copy Australia's Gun Buyback After 1996?
Australia's rules came after a mass shooting in a country with far fewer guns; the evidence that they were what lowered violence is weaker than it seems.
The claim
After a 1996 massacre in Tasmania, Australia banned many semi-automatic rifles and shotguns and bought back hundreds of thousands of guns. Supporters say mass shootings there have been rare since, and that America should follow the example.
The answer in three points
- America has an enumerated constitutional right to keep and bear arms and Australia does not. A mandatory buyback of lawfully owned guns would meet the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the Second Amendment, and it would not survive in court.
- Practice matters as much as law. America has hundreds of millions of guns in private hands, many times the number Australia had. A program that collected a share comparable to Australia's would require a scale of seizure and cost no one has proposed, and it would depend on compliance by the very people least likely to give up their guns.
- The effect on violence is disputed. Australia's homicide and suicide rates were already falling before 1996, and researchers differ over how much of the later decline owes to the law. A policy so far from American law needs strong proof, and the proof is not strong.
The Australian story is often told as a simple success, but the facts are more complicated and the legal setting is different. A policy that cannot be adopted here under the Constitution should not be sold as a model for the United States. We should learn from any country that has useful ideas, such as faster response, better mental-health care and tougher penalties for those who misuse a gun.
The numbers
- The Australian government's National Firearms Agreement of 1996 led to the buyback of about 650,000 firearms, according to the Australian Attorney-General's Department.
- The Fifth Amendment provides that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation.
- The Department of Justice's National Institute of Justice reviewed the research on gun buybacks and found little evidence that voluntary buybacks reduce crime.
What they will say next
"No mass shootings of that scale since." Mass attacks are rare events, and a rare event cannot be reliably predicted from a short run of years. Australia has had attacks since, including with other weapons.
"The law was passed by conservatives." The government that passed it was led by the Liberal Party under John Howard, which is conservative in Australian terms. It was passed in a country without a constitutional right to arms and with a different gun culture.
"A voluntary program could work." Voluntary buybacks collect the guns that owners no longer want, rarely those that criminals use, which is why research finds little effect on crime.
"Public safety outweighs property rights." The Constitution already weighs these, and the Second Amendment resolved that question in favor of the individual right. A people that wants to change it can do so through the amendment process, not by statute.