Summary In 2016, the Ombudsman completed a review of amendments made to the Restricted Premises Act to help target gun crime and premises used by serious criminals. The amendments introduced offences that can be committed by owners and occupiers of declared premises and powers to search for firearms on declared premises without a warrant.

Overview The illicit movement, trafficking and use of firearms is a serious national threat and a significant safety concern for the Australian community. The demand for and supply of illicit firearms in Australia is driven by a range of entities, from organised crime groups to low-level individual criminals, who continue to seek, procure and use...

This article attempts to determine whether enactment of the 1996 gun laws and buyback program were followed by changes in the incidence of mass firearm homicides and total firearm deaths.

This paper sets out the recent history of firearms offences, including the origins of the Firearms Act 1996 (NSW) in the aftermath of the Port Arthur massacre. It then outlines the distinction between non-strictly indictable and strictly indictable firearms offences, and considers the significance of that distinction on the sentencing of firearms offences. The role...

From 1988 to 2015, Australia ran forty-one state, territory and federal firearm amnesties for a combined total of 3,274 weeks. From the reports in which numbers were published, a minimum of 1,121,577 firearms were surrendered to police for destruction.