In a speech, Vice President Kamala Harris offered statements condemning the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine while praising gun restrictions established in Australia as an ideal model. A transcript of the speech was later posted by the White House.
Gun violence has terrorized and traumatized so many of our communities in this country. And let us be clear, it does not have to be this way, as our friends in Australia have demonstrated.
JUST IN: Kamala Harris references Australia as a country the United States should model themselves after when it comes to gun control.
Starting in 1996, Australia collected about 650,000 privately owned guns in a mandatory buyback.
They also established a gun registry and… pic.twitter.com/G1ruXHzlkZ
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 26, 2023
Harris made the remarks at a lunch she attended with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Gun control in Australia
The vice president referred to the Australian gun control system, omitting that that country required its citizens to hand over 650,000 firearms through a "mandatory buyback" in the 1990s. As reported by Vox:
Between October 1996 and September 1997, Australia responded to its own gun violence problem with a solution that was both straightforward and severe: It collected roughly 650,000 privately held guns. It was one of the largest mandatory gun buyback programs in recent history. ... Australia's states would take away all guns that had just been declared illegal. In exchange, they'd pay the guns' owners a fair price, set by a national committee using market value as a benchmark, to compensate for the loss of their property.
Despite this measure, it is still possible to acquire a weapon in Australia per its federal firearm regulations. One must be able to prove to authorities that they have a "genuine reason or motive" to have one, according to GunPolicy.org.
