I'll put the text of it here, but for the inner text links you'll need to go to the site. http://www.ozemail.com.au/~confiles/buyback.html
The Great Australian Gun Law Con BUY-BACK
Howard’s Firearm buy-back has failed, here's the proof;
Howard's Gun Ban
Buy-Back Analysis
Updated at Monday, October 20, 1997
Table of Contents
Summary *
How many banned firearms are there? *
How many banned firearms were handed in? *
How many Automatic firearms were hand-in? *
How many Military Style Semi-Automatics were handed in? *
Types of banned firearm handed in, Victoria. *
The Cost *
Quotes from Ministers and government officials *
Saving lives *
The British Path *
Replacement Firearms *
Upgrading "Firepower" *
Government Propaganda Examined *
Government Funded Phone Poll *
Late mail from the internet *
Summary
Of an estimated 3 to 4 million banned firearms in Australia only 631,141 were handed in. (refer to pages * and *)
Of an estimated 755,000 banned firearms in Victoria only 207,211 were handed in.(* & *)
The total Victorian hand-in didn't even equal the estimated 260,000 banned guns that were registered. (This figure had to be estimated as the registry won't say how many there were).
Only one tenth of one percent of all the firearms handed in Victoria was an automatic. (*)
97% of guns handed in Victoria were either shotguns or pea rifles. Not military style semi automatics (MSSA) which are one type of centre-fire rifle.(*)
The cost of the scheme is far in excess of figures released by the government. (*)
Ministers and government officials lack confidence in the Howard gun bans. (*)
Research shows the Howard gun bans will not lead to a decrease in suicide. (*)
Shooters are replacing guns they handed in with more powerful models.(*)
The Attorney General's figures should be carefully examined in light of the polling method.(*)
(Numbers in brackets are page numbers for more information.)
How many banned firearms are there?
This is an extremely difficult question to answer, many states don't register firearms individually. Even in the states that have firearm registries the compliance with registration is low. In those states with registries about one third of guns are registered.1
Registered figures
In Victoria for example the figure that was quoted at the onset of the ban was around 250,000. I don't have the source for this but it apparently came from the firearm registry. Calling the registry on (03) 9628 6830 didn't answer this question because apparently no-one at the registry (including the computer) can count. They will not tell you how many there were. How could it be that the registry doesn't know how many guns are on the register?
Without a citeable source let's accept 250,000 as the figure of registered guns in Victoria.
Unregistered
Add to this the number of unregistered firearms that fell under the ban. It is impossible to say exactly how many of these types were unregistered but experts tell us that for every registered firearm there are two unregistered. This brings us to a figure of 750,000
Personally I think it's more than that. The Leader of the National Party of Victoria and former police and emergency services minister the Hon. Pat McNamara is quoted in The Age of May 1995 as saying there were 2 million unregistered firearms of all types in Victoria.
Dealer Stock
Guns were only registered when they were sold retail. So we must add to that 750,000 all of the stock held by gun dealers, gun shops, wholesalers and importers as well as stock that was on ships coming to Australia at the time of the Howard ban. We can only guess at this figure as these firearms were never registered in the first place but let's say it was another 5,000.
This brings us to a total of 755,000 banned firearms in the state of Victoria alone.
Add to this figure the banned guns in other states and we are talking millions, several millions.
Quotes
In total there are between two and five million banned firearms in the country.
-- John Tingle, NSW Shooters Party on Allan Jones AM radio, 2UE NSW 30/9/97
Up to three million banned firearms remain in the country after the buy-back.
-- Australia's Most Wanted 29/9/97 20:30 Channel 7
How many banned firearms were handed in?
Victoria 207,211 $100,856,055
NSW 149,211 $68,000,000
ACT 4,910 $2,768,946
Tasmania 32,097 $14,274,486
Northern Territory 9,415 $5,000,433
Western Australia 47,218 $16,791,037
South Australia 52,331 $26,074,167
Queensland 128,748 $66,226,918
TOTAL 631,141 $299,992,042
Source: 1/10/97 Firearm Reform Tally WWW site at http://203.2.143.13/tally/tally.htm
These are exact figures. At the end there were 631,141 nationally and 207,211 in Victoria.
The Victorian hand in was by far the greatest portion, over 1 in 3 guns came from Victoria.
The entire national hand-in doesn't even equal the number of the banned firearms in Victoria!
Forget unregistered guns, the Victorian hand-in doesn't even equal the registered ones!
The Buy-back has clearly failed in it's objective to gather up the banned firearms.
Those hand-in figures may include (I'm not sure about this but it would seem to be the case) non-banned firearms handed over by people who just wanted to get rid of them such as air rifles, bolt, lever and pump action rifles as well as handguns and single and double barrelled shotguns. If this is true the compliance rate is even lower.
Victoria had the highest hand-in figure in the county! Over a third of the firearms handed in came from Victoria. What about the other states? NSW has a greater population but only 149,211 guns were handed in. Queensland, with all it's guns returned only 128,748. It's obvious that there is still an enormous amount of banned firearms still out there, and the only place that they will be worth anything at all is on the black market.
Who handed their guns in?
By definition only honest, law-abiding firearm owners handed their guns in.
How many Automatic firearms were hand-in?
Using the figures published in The Weekend Australian on the 20-21 September 1997 we find: The Howard gun bans, often referred to as "the decision to ban all automatic and semi-automatic firearms" has resulted in the hand-in of only 204 automatics in the State of Victoria. This represents only one tenth of one percent of the Victorian guns handed in.
And many of those automatics are from museums, collectors, were manufactured for buy-back, and I'm told at least one semi-auto was paid for at $1000 extra to show it as an automatic.
How many Military Style Semi-Automatics were handed in?
An Example: SKS and variants
Tony Cleaver, owner of Cleaver firearms in Brisbane (07) 3883 1733 and a valuer for the buy-back project, estimates that there were a total of 400,000 SKS and SKK rifles and their variations brought into the country.
How many were handed in? Well all model guns of all types amounted to little over 600,000. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out there's still a lot of military style semi-automatics (MSSA) hardware out there, now on the black market, .
What portion of firearms handed in were of the military surplus type like the SKS?
Let's break the figures down using the data from Victoria as an example. (Few states have broken down the figures and even though they were banned in Victoria there are still plenty of them and similar MSSA's in the state.)
Types of banned firearm handed in, Victoria.
Over 600,000 firearms nationally and 207,211 in Victoria. Victoria is one of the few states that has made available the breakdown figures of the various types of firearm surrendered. However the figures released were not for the entire buyback period, only to September 1997. Discussion with Maria Virgona at Firearm Reform (Ph (03) 9247 3107) suggest that no final tally of types handed in will be done at all keeping the public in the dark as to what they actually paid for. Even then the figures are presented to hide the small percentage of military style (or military surplus) semi-automatics in with firearms that were not banned including the bolt, lever and pump action as well as single shot centre-fires.
Types of banned firearm handed in, Victoria.
Source: Firearm Reform and Compensation figures as at 13 September 1997
Automatic . 204
0.1%
Centre-fire 6,216
3.2%
Pump-action Shotguns 29,084
15.1%
Auto-loading Shotguns 63,012
32.7%
Rimfires (Pea Rifle) 91,612
47.5%
Other 2,812
1.5%
Total Prohibited (Vic) 192,940
100.0%
Looking at the Victorian break-up we see…
One tenth of one percent of the guns handed in was an automatic (machine gun).
Three in a hundred were of the centre-fire type.
It's not clear how many Military Style Semi-Automatics (MSSA) were handed in Victoria as they have been included with all the other types of centre-fire firearms.
Somewhere between 0% and 3% were centre-fire semi-automatics of all types.
Of this figure a smaller percentage will be the military style semi automatics.
97% of guns handed in were either rim-fire pea rifles (very low power) or shotguns.
The Cost
That figure of $299,992,042 is only the money that was actually paid to owners for their guns.
Add accessories such as reloading gear, spare barrels, magazines and other parts, chokes etc.
Add the administration costs of this plan and all the overheads of the buy-back centres.
I've read, gun valuers are being paid $500 a day for their services.
Add disposal costs for transporting and destroying the firearms.
Add dealer compensation. An importer/wholesaler in South Australia is suing for $20,000,000.
Add ammo. Australian Defence Industries (ADI) faulty ammunition was sold at almost scrap metal prices to White-box Munitions who sorted out the good from the bad and re-packaged it. Your dollars purchased 30 tonnes back at full retail price, just to turn it back into scrap.
Quotes from Ministers and government officials
"I don’t pretend for a moment that this decision can prevent the recurrence of tragedies in the future".
-- Prime Minister John Howard, The Australian, 11th May 1996, page 1
"You can go into a western suburbs pub and within 2 hours have any type of gun you want."
Minister for Police and Emergency Services
-- The Hon Bill McGrath MLA, Deputy National Party Leader
at an information night on the Howard gun bans held on a Monday night at
the Mount View primary School, Gallaghers Rd, Glen Waverley, Melbourne Victoria
"As you rightly point out, there is no direct correlation between the number of firearms owned and the rate of homicide across countries."
-- Simon Crean, Federal Member for Hotham
Letter dated 16/12/96 Ref:3185/sd
"This proposal [the Howard gun bans] will never prevent criminals from possessing firearms and we never said it would."
-- Daryl Smeaton,
Attorney General's department
Director of Law Enforcement Co-ordination,
The Weekend Australian 20-21 September 1997 page 6
"Tighter gun control laws were not framed with the specific expectation that gun related deaths would decline."
-- Anne Standford,
press secretary for Police Minister Bill McGrath, The Geelong Advertiser 11/9/97
"The chances of being shot dead by a stranger are incredibly remote. The really important thing is to stop people in families using firearms to resolve disputes. This legislation won't do it, nor was it designed to do it."
-- Dr Adam Graycar
Australian Institute of Criminology
"Australia's most senior crime researcher"
The Australian Monday 9/12/96 page 2
"Gun bans will not stop deaths: criminologist"
"They've been tried before in this country (USA) and the effect has been that people sell back to public authorities outdated, outmoded, unwanted guns, presumably to buy functioning weapons," "Perhaps a better approach is to make it more risky to carry around a gun without a licence."
-- Professor James Wilson, US political scientist
When asked about the Australian gun buyback
Source: ALERT Sporting.Shooters.Association@adelaide.on.net
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 11:45:45 +1000" Gun buyback comment"
Saving lives
Firearms are used in 16.4% of suicides and 20.1% of Homicides. Even if all of these firearm related deaths were somehow prevented four out of every five would still occur unhindered.
Proponents of the Howard bans argue that the laws will reduce gun deaths and cite accurate research to prove their point. However they don't acknowledge the substitution effect that would see the same number of people die regardless of the method used. As dead is dead we are left to wonder how a change in the method used helps either the victim or those left behind.
"Canada implemented new law on firearms in 1977. In a before-after study for the years 1969 to 1985, Lester and Leenaars found that while the number of suicides by firearms declined after the introduction of the new law, the overall suicide rate in Canada increased."
"Making guns less available does not reduce suicide but merely causes the person seeking death to use another means. While gun-related suicides were reduced by Canada's handgun ban of 1976, the overall suicide rate did not go down at all: the gun-related suicides were replaced 100% by an increase in other types of suicide -- mostly jumping off bridges."
Howard, Williams and the "gun control" movement cannot name a single country where bans such as Howard's have saved lives. There are plenty of examples of such bans all around the world dating back for decades yet none have proved life-saving.
While millions of dollars are being handed over for guns people are dying on hospital waiting lists and our suicide rate is on the up (80% of firearm deaths are suicides yet firearms are being used in less suicides). The buy-back could have been spent on saving these lives, not squandered on Howard's folly.
And of course the police will be kept so busy with the new regulations that they will have a lot less time to fight crime. Even though police reports show registration is a failure (Lex Newgreen (Vic.), Colin Waterman (Vic.) & Greenwood (UK) Howard insists it be instituted in every state and duplicated nationally at great cost to the taxpayer and a huge drain on the police resources. This at a time when drugs are out of control and police are undermanned. One percent of the Victorian Police force is now involved in the firearms registry, 50 at the central registry office alone.
The graph below compares the ownership and firearms homicide rate in Australia. If you accept that the number of firearms in a community is related to the gun death rate the graph below leads to the perverse conclusion that the more guns in the country the less gun deaths. Naturally this is not the case because the re is no connection between the two.
Australian Bureau of Statistics spokesman, Mr David Povah, had this to say in 'The Australian' of 27/2/97.
"The figures clearly show that the absolute numbers of deaths, and the rate of deaths, had been steadily declining before Port Arthur," ..... "Also the pattern of gun deaths declined right across the board, from suicides to homicides and accidents." .... "...the nationwide analysis found that gun- related deaths actually decreased from 4.8 deaths per 100,000 in 1980-2 to 2.6 deaths in 1995."
And this over a period when guns were arriving on our shores by the container load!
The British Path
Many of those supporting the Howard gun bans point to Britain to prove their case that "gun control" works. The Brits got "tough" on gun owners after the Hungerford killings and banned some types of guns but that didn't stop the Dunblane massacre.
The British government and police force, beset with a rising crime problem, have been coming down hard on lawful firearms owners in what they purport as an attempt to curb violent crime.
British experience has shown that the more effort they focus on firearm controls the greater the level of violent crime yet they continue to ban one type of gun after another claiming they are making the country safer for all.
Like Australia, a huge proportion of the British gun deaths are suicides. Looking at the graph below we see a high correlation between unemployment and youth suicide among males. This trend began before severe firearms restrictions were in place and continued despite the introductions of many "gun control" initiatives.
Replacement Firearms
It is too early to speculate on how the buyback will impact the overall number of firearms in the Australian community. We know how many firearms were destroyed by the project to be 631,141 as at 1/10/97. What we don't yet know is how many firearms were purchased during and immediately after the buyback.
"Gun control" advocates have suggested a figure of 5% which dealers have repeated. This figure of 5% will help to inflate dealers claims against the Commonwealth for damages due to loss of business and so there is a vested interest in dealers supporting the 5% figure.
Many gun owners waited until September 1997 to hand in their firearms and will only be replacing their guns in October 1997 or later. We must add to this the mandatory 28 day waiting period and the lag time in shipping containers of replacement guns to Australia. Thus we should wait until after the annual figures for imports in 1997 are released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics before we can draw any well informed conclusions on this matter.
Upgrading "Firepower"
What seems to have happened in a lot of cases, including mine, is that shooters have cashed in their clunky old guns and used the money to buy newer equipment that is quite more powerful.
As an example I know of a person that handed in an old Stirling model 20 (.22 rimfire) with a broken trigger and a Ruger model 10/22 (.22 rim-fire)with a broken rear sight and received $300 for the two auto-loaders, far more than any dealer would have paid for them. This person is putting the money towards two military surplus .303 Enfield bolt action rifles at $150 each.
The .303 centre-fire cartridge is more than 20 times as powerful as the .22 rimfire. You could empty the entire magazine of the little Ruger (it holds 10 rounds), reload it and empty it over again and you still wouldn’t have matched the energy of a single round of the .303! In addition the .303 has a far longer range. Whereas the .22 rimfire looses it’s power and accuracy after about 100 meters the sight on the Enfield are adjustable to 2000 yards.
As for the rate of fire, which I guess was the point of the buy-back, that’s no problem at all. The British trained their riflemen to fire the SMLE bolt action rifle at a rate of forty rounds per minute and used it against Germany in the trenches of WW1. So great was the rate of fire from the British trenches that German troops believed they were facing massed machine guns.
It’s a similar story with the shotguns. This same shooter handed in a heavy old Italian Breda auto-loader and replaced it with a modern double barrel shotgun. The Breda, being a long recoil gun, couldn’t fire a second round until the action had completed it’s cycle, which was quite slow. With the double he can fire the second barrel immediately after the first (with twin trigger model both barrels can be fired simultaneously).
Sure there aren’t as many cartridges in the thing but the newer model shotguns will chamber 3" magnum cartridges and you don’t need as many shots when you're using magnums. Now this person has a shotgun that’s lighter, quicker and more powerful than the old one he handed in.
Government Propaganda Examined
Sunday, August 31, 1997
Buy-Back Bull-Dust!
You are being treated like a mushroom by the Attorney General's office.
They released survey results claiming that the buy-back was a great success. The survey is flawed and cannot be trusted.
The basis of the survey was a telephone poll about firearms ownership and gun owner's intentions to comply with the new regulations.
They are ringing up people and asking them about their personal gun ownership, if they have any illegal firearms and if they are going to hand in their now banned firearms.
Imagine this, you are at home and the phone rings. Someone with your details doing a government survey is on the other end and asks if you have any marijuana plants in the house.
Even if you did would you tell them? Of course not!
It's exactly the same with firearms. If people haven't registered their guns or don't intend to, if they have banned guns that they aren't going to hand in they are breaking the law.
There's no way there going to tell a complete stranger over the phone doing a government survey for the buy-back programme that they have illegal firearms that they intend to keep.
Is it any wonder that the survey returned a far lower firearm ownership rate than both the pro and anti-gun groups estimate it to be?
With a lower firearms ownership rate the buy-back suddenly looks a lot more effective, which in my opinion is the purpose of the survey and press snow-job.
Don't be fooled, the buy-back is a failure.
Thanks for your time.
Regards,
(signed)
Ross Wilmoth
PS. I've included the press release and a recent letter to the editor to illustrate my point.
Government Funded Phone Poll
AUSTRALIAN FIREARMS BUYBACK PUBLIC EDUCATION CAMPAIGN
NEWSPOLL RESEARCH RESULTS JUNE/JULY 1997
Summary of findings
Introduction
The latest Newspoll research builds on previous surveys conducted for the Australian Firearms Buyback Public Education Campaign in June/July 96 and December 96.
It is based on a representative sample of 2,400 Australians aged 18 years and over. The study, conducted by phone nationally in June and July 1997, was designed to monitor the effectiveness of the buyback in terms of compliance rates, consumers' self-reported gun ownership and attitudes to the gun laws.
It also, for the first time gives a reading on just how many firearms there are in the Australian community. Until now, the Commonwealth has not had reliable data on which to calculate a national figure. The buyback campaign has known since June 1996, through quantitative research (Newspoll) and qualitative research (Elliott & Shanshan), that gun owners, while they did not like the new laws, intended to comply with the new laws. The intention to comply rates have always been high,
according to the Newspoll research. This latest report shows that that intention has been translated into action.
The qualitative research also showed that gun owners saw themselves as law abiding citizens and resented any implication or inference that they were not law abiding citizens.
While there is less than 36 days yet to run in the buyback, the latest research news is extremely positive. They buyback is clearly working. The gun owners have honoured their promise to comply.
Gun ownership and compliance with the buyback
The Newspoll research indicates that 9% of adult Australians (approximately 1.2 million people) are current gun owners.
Despite the proportion of the population handing in guns due to the amnesty increasing measurably, the incidence of gun ownership has changed comparatively little over the past 12 months. A key reason is that many gun owners are in possession of more than one gun, and may hand in their (soon to be illegal) firearm while still owning a legal firearm.
Newspoll estimates that 12 months ago 45% of gun owners (at that time) were in possession of firearms prohibited under the Australasian Police Ministers' Resolutions in May 1996. Of these, it is estimated that approximately three-quarters have now handed in or disposed of their illegal firearms due to the amnesty, and are no longer in possession of an illegal gun - though many of these remain owners of legal guns.
The current ownership status of those who owned a gun 12 months ago is as follows....
a) Sixteen per cent have disposed of their illegal firearms and are no longer firearm owners.
b) 17 per cent have disposed of their illegal firearms because of the amnesty but are still owners of legal guns.
c) None per cent have not disposed of any guns and still own an illegal gun.
d) Three per cent have disposed of illegal firearms but still own an illegal gun.
e) Fifty-three per cent did not own an illegal firearm last year, nor do they currently own an illegal firearm.
More than 8 in 10 current gun owners state they would be likely to hand in an illegal firearm if they were to own one.
How many firearms are there?
For the first time we know how many firearms are in the community.
Australians currently own approximately 2.5 million firearms. This is substantially less than figures quoted by both pro-gun groups and the anti-gun groups.
Based on there being 2.5 million firearms, each Australian gun owner has in his or her possession approximately 2.1 firearms.
Endquote of AUSTRALIAN FIREARMS BUYBACK PUBLIC EDUCATION CAMPAIGN
Late mail from the internet
The following excerpt from NSW MP John Tingle on the abject _failure_ of that states' Gun Buyback as part of little johnny coward's non-UFL may be of interest.
It seems that not only do johnny's Ministers not know when they are staying in their own homes, or a motel, but they also have no idea what they are doing with BILLIONS of taxpayers dollars:
"John Tingle, NSW Shooters Party MP said that he had researched the sale of SKS and SKK firearms sold in NSW and that this figure was 186,000 . Even if every one of the 146,000 firearms handed in (in NSW) was an SKK or SKS then there were still 40,000 of these guns still in the community. This is not accounting for the 500,000 M1 carbines sold in the last 20 years, the Stirling .22 s/autos that were being sold at the rate of 50,000 per year over the last 20 years and something like 650,000 s/auto and pump action shotguns.
Mr Tingle went to the distributors and asked them to go back over their records and give an estimate of the total number of the various types of firearms that they sold that which are now prohibited. "The figure came out at 2,346,000 , and that is only the last 20 years, in NSW alone." Just over 600,000 guns have been surrendered across the nation.
Is there need to say more except to challenge the Attorney General, Darrell Williams to produce credible figure to dispute the above.?
As an aside, last night's news showing these 'dread' mass destruction devices being handed in on the last day of the 'amnesty' focussed on - A SINGLE SHOT AIR RIFLE being scrupulously documented and processed by gun grabber staff.
Kind of reinforced what I saw WITH MY OWN EYES on a recent visit to the repository of the stolen firearms on their way to being made into worthless (well, at better than $0.3 BILLION they ADMIT to wasting to date, maybe not worthless) scrap.
A rough survey of the stuff awaiting final destruction showed better than 15% were bolt action rifles, double barrel shotguns, etc; typical crap that comes out of the cupboard at each of these amnesties as useless or surplus junk.
Much of the 'real' target - full autos, machine guns etc - came from the likes of RSL clubrooms and displays, stuff that was incapable of functioning in many cases, and in some that I saw, a real part of our heritage, now lost forever.
BUT, each and every air rifle, s/s and d/b shotgun, bolt action, handgun etc handed in - even though NOT effected by the current bans, is meticulously included in the 'body count' Darrell bemuses the gullible public and the hyenas of the media with!
People - whatever side of the fence you are on; like 'em or hate 'em -
YOU HAVE BEEN - AND ARE STILL BEING - CONNED!
------------------
"The Gun from Down Under !"
http://www.para1911fanclub.w3.to/
The Great Australian Gun Law Con BUY-BACK
Howard’s Firearm buy-back has failed, here's the proof;
Howard's Gun Ban
Buy-Back Analysis
Updated at Monday, October 20, 1997
Table of Contents
Summary *
How many banned firearms are there? *
How many banned firearms were handed in? *
How many Automatic firearms were hand-in? *
How many Military Style Semi-Automatics were handed in? *
Types of banned firearm handed in, Victoria. *
The Cost *
Quotes from Ministers and government officials *
Saving lives *
The British Path *
Replacement Firearms *
Upgrading "Firepower" *
Government Propaganda Examined *
Government Funded Phone Poll *
Late mail from the internet *
Summary
Of an estimated 3 to 4 million banned firearms in Australia only 631,141 were handed in. (refer to pages * and *)
Of an estimated 755,000 banned firearms in Victoria only 207,211 were handed in.(* & *)
The total Victorian hand-in didn't even equal the estimated 260,000 banned guns that were registered. (This figure had to be estimated as the registry won't say how many there were).
Only one tenth of one percent of all the firearms handed in Victoria was an automatic. (*)
97% of guns handed in Victoria were either shotguns or pea rifles. Not military style semi automatics (MSSA) which are one type of centre-fire rifle.(*)
The cost of the scheme is far in excess of figures released by the government. (*)
Ministers and government officials lack confidence in the Howard gun bans. (*)
Research shows the Howard gun bans will not lead to a decrease in suicide. (*)
Shooters are replacing guns they handed in with more powerful models.(*)
The Attorney General's figures should be carefully examined in light of the polling method.(*)
(Numbers in brackets are page numbers for more information.)
How many banned firearms are there?
This is an extremely difficult question to answer, many states don't register firearms individually. Even in the states that have firearm registries the compliance with registration is low. In those states with registries about one third of guns are registered.1
Registered figures
In Victoria for example the figure that was quoted at the onset of the ban was around 250,000. I don't have the source for this but it apparently came from the firearm registry. Calling the registry on (03) 9628 6830 didn't answer this question because apparently no-one at the registry (including the computer) can count. They will not tell you how many there were. How could it be that the registry doesn't know how many guns are on the register?
Without a citeable source let's accept 250,000 as the figure of registered guns in Victoria.
Unregistered
Add to this the number of unregistered firearms that fell under the ban. It is impossible to say exactly how many of these types were unregistered but experts tell us that for every registered firearm there are two unregistered. This brings us to a figure of 750,000
Personally I think it's more than that. The Leader of the National Party of Victoria and former police and emergency services minister the Hon. Pat McNamara is quoted in The Age of May 1995 as saying there were 2 million unregistered firearms of all types in Victoria.
Dealer Stock
Guns were only registered when they were sold retail. So we must add to that 750,000 all of the stock held by gun dealers, gun shops, wholesalers and importers as well as stock that was on ships coming to Australia at the time of the Howard ban. We can only guess at this figure as these firearms were never registered in the first place but let's say it was another 5,000.
This brings us to a total of 755,000 banned firearms in the state of Victoria alone.
Add to this figure the banned guns in other states and we are talking millions, several millions.
Quotes
In total there are between two and five million banned firearms in the country.
-- John Tingle, NSW Shooters Party on Allan Jones AM radio, 2UE NSW 30/9/97
Up to three million banned firearms remain in the country after the buy-back.
-- Australia's Most Wanted 29/9/97 20:30 Channel 7
How many banned firearms were handed in?
Victoria 207,211 $100,856,055
NSW 149,211 $68,000,000
ACT 4,910 $2,768,946
Tasmania 32,097 $14,274,486
Northern Territory 9,415 $5,000,433
Western Australia 47,218 $16,791,037
South Australia 52,331 $26,074,167
Queensland 128,748 $66,226,918
TOTAL 631,141 $299,992,042
Source: 1/10/97 Firearm Reform Tally WWW site at http://203.2.143.13/tally/tally.htm
These are exact figures. At the end there were 631,141 nationally and 207,211 in Victoria.
The Victorian hand in was by far the greatest portion, over 1 in 3 guns came from Victoria.
The entire national hand-in doesn't even equal the number of the banned firearms in Victoria!
Forget unregistered guns, the Victorian hand-in doesn't even equal the registered ones!
The Buy-back has clearly failed in it's objective to gather up the banned firearms.
Those hand-in figures may include (I'm not sure about this but it would seem to be the case) non-banned firearms handed over by people who just wanted to get rid of them such as air rifles, bolt, lever and pump action rifles as well as handguns and single and double barrelled shotguns. If this is true the compliance rate is even lower.
Victoria had the highest hand-in figure in the county! Over a third of the firearms handed in came from Victoria. What about the other states? NSW has a greater population but only 149,211 guns were handed in. Queensland, with all it's guns returned only 128,748. It's obvious that there is still an enormous amount of banned firearms still out there, and the only place that they will be worth anything at all is on the black market.
Who handed their guns in?
By definition only honest, law-abiding firearm owners handed their guns in.
How many Automatic firearms were hand-in?
Using the figures published in The Weekend Australian on the 20-21 September 1997 we find: The Howard gun bans, often referred to as "the decision to ban all automatic and semi-automatic firearms" has resulted in the hand-in of only 204 automatics in the State of Victoria. This represents only one tenth of one percent of the Victorian guns handed in.
And many of those automatics are from museums, collectors, were manufactured for buy-back, and I'm told at least one semi-auto was paid for at $1000 extra to show it as an automatic.
How many Military Style Semi-Automatics were handed in?
An Example: SKS and variants
Tony Cleaver, owner of Cleaver firearms in Brisbane (07) 3883 1733 and a valuer for the buy-back project, estimates that there were a total of 400,000 SKS and SKK rifles and their variations brought into the country.
How many were handed in? Well all model guns of all types amounted to little over 600,000. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out there's still a lot of military style semi-automatics (MSSA) hardware out there, now on the black market, .
What portion of firearms handed in were of the military surplus type like the SKS?
Let's break the figures down using the data from Victoria as an example. (Few states have broken down the figures and even though they were banned in Victoria there are still plenty of them and similar MSSA's in the state.)
Types of banned firearm handed in, Victoria.
Over 600,000 firearms nationally and 207,211 in Victoria. Victoria is one of the few states that has made available the breakdown figures of the various types of firearm surrendered. However the figures released were not for the entire buyback period, only to September 1997. Discussion with Maria Virgona at Firearm Reform (Ph (03) 9247 3107) suggest that no final tally of types handed in will be done at all keeping the public in the dark as to what they actually paid for. Even then the figures are presented to hide the small percentage of military style (or military surplus) semi-automatics in with firearms that were not banned including the bolt, lever and pump action as well as single shot centre-fires.
Types of banned firearm handed in, Victoria.
Source: Firearm Reform and Compensation figures as at 13 September 1997
Automatic . 204
0.1%
Centre-fire 6,216
3.2%
Pump-action Shotguns 29,084
15.1%
Auto-loading Shotguns 63,012
32.7%
Rimfires (Pea Rifle) 91,612
47.5%
Other 2,812
1.5%
Total Prohibited (Vic) 192,940
100.0%
Looking at the Victorian break-up we see…
One tenth of one percent of the guns handed in was an automatic (machine gun).
Three in a hundred were of the centre-fire type.
It's not clear how many Military Style Semi-Automatics (MSSA) were handed in Victoria as they have been included with all the other types of centre-fire firearms.
Somewhere between 0% and 3% were centre-fire semi-automatics of all types.
Of this figure a smaller percentage will be the military style semi automatics.
97% of guns handed in were either rim-fire pea rifles (very low power) or shotguns.
The Cost
That figure of $299,992,042 is only the money that was actually paid to owners for their guns.
Add accessories such as reloading gear, spare barrels, magazines and other parts, chokes etc.
Add the administration costs of this plan and all the overheads of the buy-back centres.
I've read, gun valuers are being paid $500 a day for their services.
Add disposal costs for transporting and destroying the firearms.
Add dealer compensation. An importer/wholesaler in South Australia is suing for $20,000,000.
Add ammo. Australian Defence Industries (ADI) faulty ammunition was sold at almost scrap metal prices to White-box Munitions who sorted out the good from the bad and re-packaged it. Your dollars purchased 30 tonnes back at full retail price, just to turn it back into scrap.
Quotes from Ministers and government officials
"I don’t pretend for a moment that this decision can prevent the recurrence of tragedies in the future".
-- Prime Minister John Howard, The Australian, 11th May 1996, page 1
"You can go into a western suburbs pub and within 2 hours have any type of gun you want."
Minister for Police and Emergency Services
-- The Hon Bill McGrath MLA, Deputy National Party Leader
at an information night on the Howard gun bans held on a Monday night at
the Mount View primary School, Gallaghers Rd, Glen Waverley, Melbourne Victoria
"As you rightly point out, there is no direct correlation between the number of firearms owned and the rate of homicide across countries."
-- Simon Crean, Federal Member for Hotham
Letter dated 16/12/96 Ref:3185/sd
"This proposal [the Howard gun bans] will never prevent criminals from possessing firearms and we never said it would."
-- Daryl Smeaton,
Attorney General's department
Director of Law Enforcement Co-ordination,
The Weekend Australian 20-21 September 1997 page 6
"Tighter gun control laws were not framed with the specific expectation that gun related deaths would decline."
-- Anne Standford,
press secretary for Police Minister Bill McGrath, The Geelong Advertiser 11/9/97
"The chances of being shot dead by a stranger are incredibly remote. The really important thing is to stop people in families using firearms to resolve disputes. This legislation won't do it, nor was it designed to do it."
-- Dr Adam Graycar
Australian Institute of Criminology
"Australia's most senior crime researcher"
The Australian Monday 9/12/96 page 2
"Gun bans will not stop deaths: criminologist"
"They've been tried before in this country (USA) and the effect has been that people sell back to public authorities outdated, outmoded, unwanted guns, presumably to buy functioning weapons," "Perhaps a better approach is to make it more risky to carry around a gun without a licence."
-- Professor James Wilson, US political scientist
When asked about the Australian gun buyback
Source: ALERT Sporting.Shooters.Association@adelaide.on.net
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 11:45:45 +1000" Gun buyback comment"
Saving lives
Firearms are used in 16.4% of suicides and 20.1% of Homicides. Even if all of these firearm related deaths were somehow prevented four out of every five would still occur unhindered.
Proponents of the Howard bans argue that the laws will reduce gun deaths and cite accurate research to prove their point. However they don't acknowledge the substitution effect that would see the same number of people die regardless of the method used. As dead is dead we are left to wonder how a change in the method used helps either the victim or those left behind.
"Canada implemented new law on firearms in 1977. In a before-after study for the years 1969 to 1985, Lester and Leenaars found that while the number of suicides by firearms declined after the introduction of the new law, the overall suicide rate in Canada increased."
"Making guns less available does not reduce suicide but merely causes the person seeking death to use another means. While gun-related suicides were reduced by Canada's handgun ban of 1976, the overall suicide rate did not go down at all: the gun-related suicides were replaced 100% by an increase in other types of suicide -- mostly jumping off bridges."
Howard, Williams and the "gun control" movement cannot name a single country where bans such as Howard's have saved lives. There are plenty of examples of such bans all around the world dating back for decades yet none have proved life-saving.
While millions of dollars are being handed over for guns people are dying on hospital waiting lists and our suicide rate is on the up (80% of firearm deaths are suicides yet firearms are being used in less suicides). The buy-back could have been spent on saving these lives, not squandered on Howard's folly.
And of course the police will be kept so busy with the new regulations that they will have a lot less time to fight crime. Even though police reports show registration is a failure (Lex Newgreen (Vic.), Colin Waterman (Vic.) & Greenwood (UK) Howard insists it be instituted in every state and duplicated nationally at great cost to the taxpayer and a huge drain on the police resources. This at a time when drugs are out of control and police are undermanned. One percent of the Victorian Police force is now involved in the firearms registry, 50 at the central registry office alone.
The graph below compares the ownership and firearms homicide rate in Australia. If you accept that the number of firearms in a community is related to the gun death rate the graph below leads to the perverse conclusion that the more guns in the country the less gun deaths. Naturally this is not the case because the re is no connection between the two.
Australian Bureau of Statistics spokesman, Mr David Povah, had this to say in 'The Australian' of 27/2/97.
"The figures clearly show that the absolute numbers of deaths, and the rate of deaths, had been steadily declining before Port Arthur," ..... "Also the pattern of gun deaths declined right across the board, from suicides to homicides and accidents." .... "...the nationwide analysis found that gun- related deaths actually decreased from 4.8 deaths per 100,000 in 1980-2 to 2.6 deaths in 1995."
And this over a period when guns were arriving on our shores by the container load!
The British Path
Many of those supporting the Howard gun bans point to Britain to prove their case that "gun control" works. The Brits got "tough" on gun owners after the Hungerford killings and banned some types of guns but that didn't stop the Dunblane massacre.
The British government and police force, beset with a rising crime problem, have been coming down hard on lawful firearms owners in what they purport as an attempt to curb violent crime.
British experience has shown that the more effort they focus on firearm controls the greater the level of violent crime yet they continue to ban one type of gun after another claiming they are making the country safer for all.
Like Australia, a huge proportion of the British gun deaths are suicides. Looking at the graph below we see a high correlation between unemployment and youth suicide among males. This trend began before severe firearms restrictions were in place and continued despite the introductions of many "gun control" initiatives.
Replacement Firearms
It is too early to speculate on how the buyback will impact the overall number of firearms in the Australian community. We know how many firearms were destroyed by the project to be 631,141 as at 1/10/97. What we don't yet know is how many firearms were purchased during and immediately after the buyback.
"Gun control" advocates have suggested a figure of 5% which dealers have repeated. This figure of 5% will help to inflate dealers claims against the Commonwealth for damages due to loss of business and so there is a vested interest in dealers supporting the 5% figure.
Many gun owners waited until September 1997 to hand in their firearms and will only be replacing their guns in October 1997 or later. We must add to this the mandatory 28 day waiting period and the lag time in shipping containers of replacement guns to Australia. Thus we should wait until after the annual figures for imports in 1997 are released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics before we can draw any well informed conclusions on this matter.
Upgrading "Firepower"
What seems to have happened in a lot of cases, including mine, is that shooters have cashed in their clunky old guns and used the money to buy newer equipment that is quite more powerful.
As an example I know of a person that handed in an old Stirling model 20 (.22 rimfire) with a broken trigger and a Ruger model 10/22 (.22 rim-fire)with a broken rear sight and received $300 for the two auto-loaders, far more than any dealer would have paid for them. This person is putting the money towards two military surplus .303 Enfield bolt action rifles at $150 each.
The .303 centre-fire cartridge is more than 20 times as powerful as the .22 rimfire. You could empty the entire magazine of the little Ruger (it holds 10 rounds), reload it and empty it over again and you still wouldn’t have matched the energy of a single round of the .303! In addition the .303 has a far longer range. Whereas the .22 rimfire looses it’s power and accuracy after about 100 meters the sight on the Enfield are adjustable to 2000 yards.
As for the rate of fire, which I guess was the point of the buy-back, that’s no problem at all. The British trained their riflemen to fire the SMLE bolt action rifle at a rate of forty rounds per minute and used it against Germany in the trenches of WW1. So great was the rate of fire from the British trenches that German troops believed they were facing massed machine guns.
It’s a similar story with the shotguns. This same shooter handed in a heavy old Italian Breda auto-loader and replaced it with a modern double barrel shotgun. The Breda, being a long recoil gun, couldn’t fire a second round until the action had completed it’s cycle, which was quite slow. With the double he can fire the second barrel immediately after the first (with twin trigger model both barrels can be fired simultaneously).
Sure there aren’t as many cartridges in the thing but the newer model shotguns will chamber 3" magnum cartridges and you don’t need as many shots when you're using magnums. Now this person has a shotgun that’s lighter, quicker and more powerful than the old one he handed in.
Government Propaganda Examined
Sunday, August 31, 1997
Buy-Back Bull-Dust!
You are being treated like a mushroom by the Attorney General's office.
They released survey results claiming that the buy-back was a great success. The survey is flawed and cannot be trusted.
The basis of the survey was a telephone poll about firearms ownership and gun owner's intentions to comply with the new regulations.
They are ringing up people and asking them about their personal gun ownership, if they have any illegal firearms and if they are going to hand in their now banned firearms.
Imagine this, you are at home and the phone rings. Someone with your details doing a government survey is on the other end and asks if you have any marijuana plants in the house.
Even if you did would you tell them? Of course not!
It's exactly the same with firearms. If people haven't registered their guns or don't intend to, if they have banned guns that they aren't going to hand in they are breaking the law.
There's no way there going to tell a complete stranger over the phone doing a government survey for the buy-back programme that they have illegal firearms that they intend to keep.
Is it any wonder that the survey returned a far lower firearm ownership rate than both the pro and anti-gun groups estimate it to be?
With a lower firearms ownership rate the buy-back suddenly looks a lot more effective, which in my opinion is the purpose of the survey and press snow-job.
Don't be fooled, the buy-back is a failure.
Thanks for your time.
Regards,
(signed)
Ross Wilmoth
PS. I've included the press release and a recent letter to the editor to illustrate my point.
Government Funded Phone Poll
AUSTRALIAN FIREARMS BUYBACK PUBLIC EDUCATION CAMPAIGN
NEWSPOLL RESEARCH RESULTS JUNE/JULY 1997
Summary of findings
Introduction
The latest Newspoll research builds on previous surveys conducted for the Australian Firearms Buyback Public Education Campaign in June/July 96 and December 96.
It is based on a representative sample of 2,400 Australians aged 18 years and over. The study, conducted by phone nationally in June and July 1997, was designed to monitor the effectiveness of the buyback in terms of compliance rates, consumers' self-reported gun ownership and attitudes to the gun laws.
It also, for the first time gives a reading on just how many firearms there are in the Australian community. Until now, the Commonwealth has not had reliable data on which to calculate a national figure. The buyback campaign has known since June 1996, through quantitative research (Newspoll) and qualitative research (Elliott & Shanshan), that gun owners, while they did not like the new laws, intended to comply with the new laws. The intention to comply rates have always been high,
according to the Newspoll research. This latest report shows that that intention has been translated into action.
The qualitative research also showed that gun owners saw themselves as law abiding citizens and resented any implication or inference that they were not law abiding citizens.
While there is less than 36 days yet to run in the buyback, the latest research news is extremely positive. They buyback is clearly working. The gun owners have honoured their promise to comply.
Gun ownership and compliance with the buyback
The Newspoll research indicates that 9% of adult Australians (approximately 1.2 million people) are current gun owners.
Despite the proportion of the population handing in guns due to the amnesty increasing measurably, the incidence of gun ownership has changed comparatively little over the past 12 months. A key reason is that many gun owners are in possession of more than one gun, and may hand in their (soon to be illegal) firearm while still owning a legal firearm.
Newspoll estimates that 12 months ago 45% of gun owners (at that time) were in possession of firearms prohibited under the Australasian Police Ministers' Resolutions in May 1996. Of these, it is estimated that approximately three-quarters have now handed in or disposed of their illegal firearms due to the amnesty, and are no longer in possession of an illegal gun - though many of these remain owners of legal guns.
The current ownership status of those who owned a gun 12 months ago is as follows....
a) Sixteen per cent have disposed of their illegal firearms and are no longer firearm owners.
b) 17 per cent have disposed of their illegal firearms because of the amnesty but are still owners of legal guns.
c) None per cent have not disposed of any guns and still own an illegal gun.
d) Three per cent have disposed of illegal firearms but still own an illegal gun.
e) Fifty-three per cent did not own an illegal firearm last year, nor do they currently own an illegal firearm.
More than 8 in 10 current gun owners state they would be likely to hand in an illegal firearm if they were to own one.
How many firearms are there?
For the first time we know how many firearms are in the community.
Australians currently own approximately 2.5 million firearms. This is substantially less than figures quoted by both pro-gun groups and the anti-gun groups.
Based on there being 2.5 million firearms, each Australian gun owner has in his or her possession approximately 2.1 firearms.
Endquote of AUSTRALIAN FIREARMS BUYBACK PUBLIC EDUCATION CAMPAIGN
Late mail from the internet
The following excerpt from NSW MP John Tingle on the abject _failure_ of that states' Gun Buyback as part of little johnny coward's non-UFL may be of interest.
It seems that not only do johnny's Ministers not know when they are staying in their own homes, or a motel, but they also have no idea what they are doing with BILLIONS of taxpayers dollars:
"John Tingle, NSW Shooters Party MP said that he had researched the sale of SKS and SKK firearms sold in NSW and that this figure was 186,000 . Even if every one of the 146,000 firearms handed in (in NSW) was an SKK or SKS then there were still 40,000 of these guns still in the community. This is not accounting for the 500,000 M1 carbines sold in the last 20 years, the Stirling .22 s/autos that were being sold at the rate of 50,000 per year over the last 20 years and something like 650,000 s/auto and pump action shotguns.
Mr Tingle went to the distributors and asked them to go back over their records and give an estimate of the total number of the various types of firearms that they sold that which are now prohibited. "The figure came out at 2,346,000 , and that is only the last 20 years, in NSW alone." Just over 600,000 guns have been surrendered across the nation.
Is there need to say more except to challenge the Attorney General, Darrell Williams to produce credible figure to dispute the above.?
As an aside, last night's news showing these 'dread' mass destruction devices being handed in on the last day of the 'amnesty' focussed on - A SINGLE SHOT AIR RIFLE being scrupulously documented and processed by gun grabber staff.
Kind of reinforced what I saw WITH MY OWN EYES on a recent visit to the repository of the stolen firearms on their way to being made into worthless (well, at better than $0.3 BILLION they ADMIT to wasting to date, maybe not worthless) scrap.
A rough survey of the stuff awaiting final destruction showed better than 15% were bolt action rifles, double barrel shotguns, etc; typical crap that comes out of the cupboard at each of these amnesties as useless or surplus junk.
Much of the 'real' target - full autos, machine guns etc - came from the likes of RSL clubrooms and displays, stuff that was incapable of functioning in many cases, and in some that I saw, a real part of our heritage, now lost forever.
BUT, each and every air rifle, s/s and d/b shotgun, bolt action, handgun etc handed in - even though NOT effected by the current bans, is meticulously included in the 'body count' Darrell bemuses the gullible public and the hyenas of the media with!
People - whatever side of the fence you are on; like 'em or hate 'em -
YOU HAVE BEEN - AND ARE STILL BEING - CONNED!
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"The Gun from Down Under !"
http://www.para1911fanclub.w3.to/