This is what a gun cap and buy-back looks like in practice

On Monday, New South Wales started its gun buyback. It comes with a new cap of 4 firearms for recreational hunters and 10 for sporting shooters, farmers and pest controllers. The first phase pays fixed prices of A$450 to A$1,000 a firearm. Only six police stations are taking bookings, and ABC reports they're already full.

It's good to see so many NSW firearms retailers, including Twin Rivers Firearms, Extreme Outdoor Sports, Mudgee Firearms and Forbes Firearms, publicly refusing to take part in or assist with the scheme. Instead, several are pointing their customers to the NSW Parliament inquiry so owners can have their say.

New Zealand came close to a similar path. A five-gun cap and a buy-back were among the proposals floated during the regulator's Police era, before Firearms Safety and Education NZ was set up. Those ideas were rejected. NSW shows why that matters: a cap and a buy-back fall on licensed, vetted people while doing nothing about criminal supply. Here in New Zealand, Police's own recent results point to illicit, stolen and 3D-printed firearms as the real problem.

COLFO will keep standing up for practical, evidence-based policy for law-abiding owners.

Sources: ABC and NSW Government