MELBOURNE, Australia (Reuters) — Australia said on Friday (June 16) it would introduce a three-month national gun amnesty, the first in more than 20 years, in a bid to reduce the number of illegal firearms which have been used in recent Islamist-inspired attacks.
Australian Justice Minister Michael Keenan said that from July 1, locals can hand in illegal firearms to authorities without prosecution.
Australia has some of the world’s toughest gun control laws, introduced after the country’s worst mass murder, when a gunman killed 35 people at Port Arthur in the island state of Tasmania in 1996.
In Australia’s most deadly incident inspired by the Islamic State group, a gunman used an illegal firearm in a 2014 Sydney cafe siege in which three people, including the hostage-taker, were killed.
