[M1903A1]

I understand that some people truly plundered the Australian turn-in program.

Once I heard a story that the government offered “bounties” for guns and accessories (such as magazines) turned in...and listed a payment of $2 apiece for ten-round SKS stripper clips. Somebody promptly showed up with two oil drums full of empty SKS stripper clips...that the government had to pay for, every one.

[Drew68]

I understand that some people truly plundered the Australian turn-in program.

Yep! If you look closely at this 1996 photo originally printed in the New York Times, you'll see many of the weapons turned in at this buy-back location in New South Wales consist of rusty bolt actions and single-shot shotguns --weapons that weren't even banned to begin with.

Not a whole lot of "assault weapons" in that photo, is there? I see one SKS in the upper right.

So of the 680,000 firearms turned in, how many of those were actually banned versus how many were just people taking the opportunity to get good cash for old junk? In light of this, compliance was probably far, far less than the 25% I posted earlier.