[TYVets]

Is it true that in the ten years preceding Mr Howard's Law that the number of Ruger 10/22’s alone was twice the number of firearms turned in and destroyed?

Sorry I can't give the source of that story.

[melsec]

I heard these figures at the time but would hazard a guess they are wildly inflated. Still I know a few farmers and they assure me that many they knew would find a way to hold onto a few guns for vermin shooting purposes.

What we do hear about more nowadays are semi-automatic hand guns being used by bikie gangs to shoot at each other. These are either 1) Guns that were secreted during the buy back scheme or 2) Smuggled guns. I think the later may be more true as these guys have connections everywhere. In reality we do not have a lot of gun crime and that which we do have is pasted all over the newspapers.

Of course if you’re a thug it’s easy to replace a gun with a knife, machette or baseball bat and commit the same crimes.

Mel