Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop is sharing some advice to the United States on gun control in the wake of the Las Vegas mass shooting.
Bishop credited Australia’s national firearms agreement, which outlawed semi-automatic and automatic weapons, as well as their gun buyback program for the country’s lowered gun violence rate, enacted following a mass shooting at Port Arthur in 1996.
When asked if she’s able to share Australia’s experience with the U.S., Bishop indicated that this sort of discussion could take place.
“This will most certainly raise again the whole debate about U.S. gun laws,” Bishop said Tuesday on Australia’s Seven Network Sunrise morning show.
“What we can offer is our experience, and after the mass killings at Port Arthur in the late 1990s under John Howard we implemented a national firearms agreement and this prohibited semi-automatic and automatic weapons, we had the national gun buyback scheme,” Bishop said. “We can share our experience but at the end of the day it is going to be up to United States legislators and lawmakers, the United States public, to change the laws to ensure that this type of incident does not happen again.”
According to the minister of justice, last month almost 26,000 firearms were surrendered voluntarily by citizens without fear of facing prosecution, ending a three-month gun amnesty period in the country.
