Australian Buyback to Address ‘Excess’ Guns and We Have Questions

I get that the Bondi Beach massacre rocked Australians to their core. They were very confident that their gun control laws worked, only to find out that they did crap all to keep terrorists from killing people. In a better world, this would mean they recognized the problem, repealed gun control laws, and took a different approach to such attacks.

But we don’t have that better world because someone had to shoot a gorilla in 2016.

Granted, I doubt Australia would have done anything different even if Harambe were still with us.

Now, though, they’re talking about yet another buyback, this one to get “excess” guns, and this makes me and others have questions.

To most TTAG readers, the concept of having too many guns is a completely foreign one. The right to keep and bear arms has an “s” on the end of it, after all, and no “appropriate” number is listed in the Second Amendment.

Besides, the concept of too many guns begs the question of who is in charge of deciding how many are too many. American gun owners don’t want anything to do with such a question.

That’s why it caught my eye when I saw a news report out of Australia that New South Wales politicians were planning yet another gun “buyback” in the wake of last December’s Bondi Beach terror attack. What I found particularly interesting was that they are targeting “excess” guns.

“The scheme would see 274,000 guns taken out of circulation, with those with excess firearms receiving up to $1,000 for their weapons from November 2,” the report stated. “By early next year, that figure would rise to $10,000 for those with a market value of more than $3,000.”

Excess guns.

What the hell does that mean?

The term itself suggests there’s a proper number of firearms that should be in private hands, and anything beyond that is now unacceptable. The issue is, who decides that, and what criteria do they use?

Take life on a Southwest Georgia farm. The gun you use for coyotes isn’t the same one you’re going to want for deer or feral hog, necessarily. The one you use for squirrels or rabbits is going to be different still. The gun you use for something going bump in the night is still different, as is the one you shoot quail with.

And this is pretending that most guns exist for hunting rather than the more accurate descriptor of “I have it because I can.”

Plus, “excess” is a subjective term. When it comes to my ownership of guns, there is no excess. How many guns are appropriate for me to own? All of them. For my wife, though, the correct amount is probably one fewer than I currently have.

So what exactly does the Australian government consider an appropriate number of guns for a country that considers itself a free society?

Clearly, the answer is, “Too few to really be a free society.”

And, honestly, I’m tired of people pretending that anti-gun countries are still free. The very nature of their gun control proves that, and believing in such a thing as excess guns just solidified that proof even more.

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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