Hillary Clinton lauds Australia’s draconian gun ban—a confiscation-under-threat-of-incarceration program disguised as a “buyback” instituted two decades ago. But now Australians are asking hard questions about the effectiveness of the ban, and anti-gunners don’t like the answers.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, admitting that hundreds of thousands have disobeyed the ban, announced a gun amnesty in a desperate attempt to spur compliance. A public row between Turnbull and his predecessor, Tony Abbott, over importation of the Adler lever-action shotgun has drawn attention to the failure of Australia’s ban and renewed the national gun-control debate.
Proponents say the ban has reduced “gun crime,” but manslaughter, sexual assault, kidnapping, armed robbery and unarmed robbery spiked after the ban, and remain at pre-ban levels. The ban had zero effect on Australia’s suicide rate, which is at a 10-year high.
At the same time, violent crime in the U.S. fell 72 percent from 1993 to 2011—all while our country experienced unprecedented growth in gun sales.
