As former Australian politician Tim Fischer turns the shooting of Christopher Lane into an opportunity to push a travel boycott until the U.S. changes its gun laws, police in Sydney launched “a new plan to tackle out-of-control gun violence” there.
The new action against gun violence was launched on August 21 and will pull together various police-sponsored gun control operations into one. The name of the new effort is Operation Talon.
According to the Ballina Shire Advocate, “over 9,000 guns have been taken off New South Wales (NSW) streets and 3352 people have charged” during previous operations in the last 12 months alone.
NSW police commissioner Andrew Scipione explained: “There is no single source of gun violence… guns have fallen into the hands of organized crime, outlaw motorcycle gangs, mid-level crime groups and petty thieves and the lines are often blurred.”
Not ironically, Australia implemented a massive purge of guns in 1996, which included bans on “assault weapons” and other semi-automatic rifles and shotguns. They also did forced buybacks and then entered into a strict licensing and registration agreement where certain single-shot rifles and similar firearms could be owned but only if the owner provided justification for the possession of such a weapon.
Yet 17 years after the implementation of gun control schemes that are very similar in many ways to those being pushed by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Joe Manchin (D-WV), and Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the NSW police department is launching a new operation to rein in gun violence.
The lesson: criminals do not pay attention to gun bans. They never have and they never will.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins.
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