COMING CLEAN

10,000 Banned Guns Bought During First Month of New Zealand Buyback Plan

The “no questions asked” program to buy banned firearms was launched in mid-July.

More than 10,000 firearms were purchased by the New Zealand government in the first month of a “no questions asked” plan to buy back newly banned weapons, The Guardian reports. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern pushed through legislation that banned military and semi-automatic weapons after an Australian white supremacist killed 51 people in Christchurch mosques earlier this year. The government set aside nearly $100 million to buy the banned weapons to get them off the streets. “I could not fathom how weapons that could cause such destruction and large-scale death could be obtained legally in this country,” Ardern said after the mass shootings. There are between 1.2 and 1.5 million now-prohibited weapons in New Zealand, according to some estimates. Gun owners have until Dec. 20 to sell back or hand in their weapons or face jail sentences of between two to five years.