The Business of Guns

lower overall quantity of gun trafficking from out of state after the passage of the Brady Bill, but this, too, has not translated to lower overall gun violence, as gun purchases have simply shifted from out-of-state to in-state. Gun Buybacks: A Possible Solution? In 1996, the citizens and politicians of Australia were rocked by the Port Arthur Massacre, a mass shooting in a small southern town that left 35 persons dead. The Australian government introduced major gun reforms, including outlawing particular guns that had been legal and unregulated (prior to this, only handguns were regulated in Australia) and instituting one of the largest mandatory gun-buyback programs in world history. Over half a million firearms—an estimated 20 percent of all the nation’s guns—were sold by citizens to the government. Data on Australia’s crime rate since then have unambiguously shown a clear decline: the average gun homicide rate dropped by 42 percent, while the average gun suicide rate dropped by 57 percent. Australia’s gun-buyback program remains a common talking point among gun control advocates, who call for a similar program in the United States. If the United States’ gun homicide rate were to fall by the same measure, it could save 7,000 lives per year. The United States was, in fact, the first nation in history to set up a gun-buyback program, in the city of Baltimore in the 1970s. More city-level buybacks have seen successful exchanges of firearms to law enforcement, although no state-level buybacks have ever been attempted, and the average collection yields fewer than 1,000 guns. Several Democratic presidential candidates for the 2020 election have supported or outright called for national buybacks, pushing the issue directly into the mainstream political debate.

The Business of Guns

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