Do gun buybacks work?

This is a list of countries with the most guns per person. Leading the list is the US, the only place in the world where guns outnumber people.
Yemen is second with 53 guns per 100 people.
This is primarily because Yemen has been fighting a civil war for a decade. Tied in third place is Serbia. No other country in Europe has more firearms per capita than Serbia. This is also a legacy of conflict, most recently in the former Yugoslavia throughout the nineties. But Serbia is trying to get off the list. To do that, they're trying something big. They're asking Serbians to surrender their guns. And they're not the first to try it. From the end of the Yugoslav wars in 2001 until 2023, there were five mass shootings in Serbia. But then in May of 2023, there were two, just one day apart. First, a seventh grader opened fire at a school and killed eight students and a security guard. The very next day, another mass shooter killed eight people and wounded 15 a few miles away. In response, Serbia's president vowed to disarm the country. His plan included a monthlong program that would allow Serbians to surrender illegal guns, called a "weapons amnesty." These are also sometimes called "gun buybacks." It's not Serbia's first amnesty, but it's been the most successful in the country's history. More than 26,000 weapons, 1.3 million rounds of ammunition and 6000 explosives were surrendered. But will removing all these weapons work? And how do we know? One place to look for answers is a country that's tried something similar: Australia. On April 28th, 1996, a young man drove to the tourist town of Port Arthur, Tasmania, and opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle, killing 35 people and wounding 18. As Australia prepares to mourn the victims, there have been urgent calls for tough new gun laws. Just 12 days later, Australia adopted a national firearms agreement. It centered around ten core measures, including registration, licensing and safety training. But the number one priority was a ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons, the most dangerous in mass shootings. To retrieve these newly banned weapons already in circulation, the agreement also included a yearlong gun amnesty. Asking Australians to give up their weapons wouldn't be easy. "Are you going to surrender your arms?" But it turns out, the conditions were just right. And looking at the features of Australia's program can help us understand why it worked. First, gun reform in Australia had overwhelming public support. After Port Arthur, thousands took to the streets to demand change. And polls showed that about 90% of Australians backed them up. Second, Australia's weapon amnesty program was national, not just in certain parts of the country. And the government paid fair prices for every item surrendered. Businesses impacted even got government assistance. The amnesty was anonymous, with no consequences. But it was also mandatory, with serious penalties for noncompliance. To facilitate compliance, buyback centers where Australians could drop off their weapons were set up across the country. Finally, once the weapons were collected, they had to be destroyed. That typically meant crushed and then melted. And all of this had to be implemented alongside new firearm restrictions to keep illegal weapons out of the public's hands after the amnesty was over. Australia's 1996 buyback removed more than 640,000 guns from circulation. By some estimates, that was about 20% of all weapons in Australia. So did it make a difference? First we can look at the frequency of mass shootings. From 1980 to 1996, Australia experienced 14 mass shootings, but in the 18 years since Port Arthur there were none. But that was also probably a result of Australia's broader gun reforms. Looking specifically at the gun buyback program, the big impact we find is on suicides. A study found that the states where more firearms were turned in had greater reductions in suicides. Since 1990, all these countries have had weapons collection programs in which at least 10,000 firearms were destroyed. But they haven't all been as successful as Australia's. In the US, it's estimated that since the 80s, more than 500 gun buybacks have been held in 37 states. But in the US buybacks are small locally run programs. They're voluntary, aren't typically accompanied by new firearm restrictions, and while the majority support voluntary buybacks, they have yet to amass overwhelming public support. Nationally, both mass shootings and overall gun deaths continue to rise. Now let's look at Serbia. Serbia's recent weapon amnesty isn't mandatory and doesn't include compensation, but it does have one thing that separates it from Serbia's earlier gun amnesties: the level of public support, and the calls to look beyond policy and examine the culture that got them here in the first place. Most gun amnesties are temporary, and maintaining their effectiveness takes work and consistency. Even in Australia, an increasingly powerful gun lobby is chipping away at gun laws. Still, Australia's world-leading response to gun violence is instructive for other countries on the list. It might be impossible to replicate Australia's exact conditions and apply every single lesson. But if Australia is any indication of what's possible, Serbia could go from topping the list of countries with the most guns per person, to one that is off the list. And if Serbia can do it, maybe other countries that suffer from gun violence can do it too.