Clinton: Australian-Style Gun Control ‘Worth Considering’ for U.S.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: "Back to handguns. My name is [indecipherable]. Recently, Australia managed to get away, or take away tens of thousands, millions of handguns, and in one year, they were all gone. Can we do that? And why, if we can't, why can't we?"
CLINTON: "Australia is a good example, Canada is a good example, the U.K. is a good example. Why? Because each of them have had mass killings. Australia had a huge mass killing about 20-20 five years ago, Canada did as well, so did the U.K. And in reaction, they passed much stricter gun laws. In the Australian example, as I recall, that was a buyback program. The Australian government, as part of trying to clamp down on the availability of automatic weapons, offered a good price for buying hundreds of thousands of guns. Then, they basically clamped down going forward in terms of having more of a background check approach, more of a permitting approach, but they believed, and I think the evidence supports them that by offering to buy back the guns, they were able to curtail the supply, and set a different standard for gun purchases in the future. Communities have done that in our country. Several communities have done gun buyback programs but I think it would be worth considering doing it on the national level, if that could be arranged. Remember, I know that after the terrible 2008 financial crisis, one of the programs that President Obama was able to get in place was cash for clunkers. You remember that? Getting them off the road and that was partly a way to get people to buy new cars because we wanted to get more economic acclivity and it was partly the way to get old models, that were polluting too much, sort of off the road. So I think that's worth considering. I do not know enough details to tell you how we would do it, or how would it would work, but certainly the Australian example is worth looking at. Thank you."