Australia is planning to ban the importation of bump stocks, and get its states and territories to ban them outright, too.
Rapid-fire gun attachments set for ban
Gun attachments which increase the firing speed of rifles, like those used in the Las Vegas massacre, are set to be banned in Australia.The federal government is outlawing the devices, and toughening rules for serial numbers on weapons shipped into Australia for better tracking.
Either this is just a political show of “Look! We’re doing something,” or they know something they’d rather we didn’t.
Obviously, bump stocks only work on semi-automatic firearms. But Australia already regulates the heck out of those. The only semiautomatic rifles allowed to civilians are Category C rimfires that can hold up to ten rounds, and Category D — for government or certain “occupational shooters” (pest control and the like) — centerfire rifles and rimfires holding more than ten rounds.
As you may recall, post-Port Arthur Massacre, Australia banned and “bought back” all the bad guns. Or so some anti-rights Presidential candidates would have us believe. You wouldn’t think the few semi-automatic rifles still out there would support much of a demand for bump stocks. That suggests that this ban is all smoke and mirrors.
More than likely, that ban only saw around 20% compliance. Supporting that is the fact that Australia had to run an amnesty in 2017. The government claimed 51,000 firearms were surrendered, of an estimated 260,000 unregistered firearms that were somehow still in the wild; that’s roughly… 20% again.
By government estimates, that leaves 209,000 unregistered firearms on the loose. Perhaps enough of those are semi-auto rifles to make importing bump stocks worthwhile.
If the bump stock ban is all for show, the play they’re producing is “Look What A Failure Our Ban Is.” I hope New Zealand and our own cast of gun controllers is watching.
