Albanese said Australia has more guns now than 30 years ago, when the country’s deadliest-ever mass shooting took place.Australia will launch a national gun buyback scheme, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced, as the country continues to come to terms with the deadly attack on a Jewish holiday event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach that left 15 people dead.Albanese called the plan the country’s biggest gun buyback since 1996 – the year of Australia’s deadliest mass shooting in modern history, the Port Arthur massacre in the island state of Tasmania – and said authorities will purchase surplus, newly-banned and illegal firearms.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list“Right now, there are more guns in Australia than there were during Port Arthur. We can’t allow that to continue,” Albanese told a news conference on Friday, adding that there are currently more than four million firearms in the country.“Non-citizens have no need to own a gun. And someone in suburban Sydney has no need to own six … The terrible events of Bondi show we need to get more guns off our streets,” he said.Albanese added that authorities in Australia’s states and territories will be tasked with collecting the weapons and processing payments for surrendered firearms under the scheme. Federal police will then be responsible for destroying them.“We expect hundreds of thousands of firearms will be collected and destroyed through this scheme,” Albanese added.Aided by some of the toughest gun restrictions globally, Australia has one of the lowest gun homicide rates in the wo …
