Australia’s Unconstitutional Mandatory Buy Back of Firearms:  Could We Be Next? 

The essence of culture is the method of exchanging ideas. Some ideas are accepted, while some are rejected. The United States previously was the first in the line of descent of ideas, and practices for the rest of the world, and humanity to follow. At some point the US lost its position that line, especially when it comes to gun rights.

In fact the region cited by most leftist politicians is the Oceanic country of Australia. Following a slew of  massacres in the 80’s, and 90’ including Milperra, and Port Arthur Australian liberal party politicians began to consider taking serious measures. This however was tricky because the Australian Constitution prohibits the federal government from enacting gun laws, so in a series of public meetings wearing a bulletproof vest for dramatic effect Prime Minister John Howard of the Liberal Party convinced individual states adopt them under an NFA or National Firearms Agreement. The 1996 agreement included a ban on semi automatic rifles, pump action shotguns, and long guns, and also mandated a very strict licensing system. The Australian Constitution, not that they didn’t just wipe their ass with it, requires the government to pay just compensation for property it takes over. This particular program was projected to cost 500 million AUD which the government acquired through a 1.5% or more increase of  the medicare levy. In 1997, when all was said and done 660 thousand firearms were collected, and destroyed.

In the 20 years since liberals across Australia, and the world have been ranting and raving about the “success” of this program citing an up to 47% drop in gun related deaths. This is true, from 1996 to 2016 the numbers dictate this is a scenario in which the left is citing empirically correct data, however they fail to analyze it correctly. The figure below shows it all. Note two very important things, all homicide rates were, and have been falling in the years before, and after the 1996 buyback. Also they were falling at the same or even a higher rate than firearms, thus rendering this program futile at best.

Australia is over 7,000 miles or around 12,000 kilometers from Los Angeles. Point being this country is far away from the US, so most Americans may believe they don’t have to worry about the effects or implications of the Australian system. Reason being, Australian laws do not apply to people in the United States. However, western nations and leaders often influence each other. Most notably Hillary Clinton was quoted as saying the Australian system “would be worth considering”. This method of exchanging ideas is quite common, and has been observed in other areas like state funded higher education, and healthcare in Europe; both of which have had real effects on American legislation. So when anyone utters the correlation/causation fallacy that this hugely expensive, and unconstitutional behemoth of a program is a huge success be sure to let them know how wrong they are.

References

• http://thefederalist.com/2015/06/25/the-australia-gun-control-fallacy/
• http://www.factcheck.org/2009/05/gun-control-in-australia/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Australia

-Conner S. is a full-time college student who spent time working on the 2016 Trump Presidential Campaign.  Shortly after highscool he was hired by Armslist as an intern, where he is able to apply his passion for politics and contemporary issues.  He can be reached at intern@armslist.com.