You can get a bit of a summary of the to-and-fro about buyback benefits at the Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia . Broadly, Melbourne Institute researchers Lee and Suardi had the last word on the quibbling between Baker & McPhedran (no benefit) and Chapman et al. (zomg way good). The benefits were minimal.

As far as I am concerned you can never have enough gun rules.
I don't believe we should have gun sports at all.

How many times have we heard about criminals obtaining their guns from 'gun cabinets' in people's homes? How many times have we heard of people who own guns using it as a murder weapon or as a suicide weapon?

The only need for guns is on farms and on the battle fields.
We don't want our society to end up like America where many people own guns 'for protection'.

Guns can be used for mass murders much more easily than other weapons.
Ban all non-essential guns.

suzaneonline,guns in the hands of ordinary citizens are the least of your worries.The oligarchs will kill far more people through their war mongering and economic austerity.Already 1.4 million in Iraq dead plus 60,000 US Troops.

You cannot see the trees for the forest.

Heh, heh, ban everything eh suzeonline? Think of the children, if only one child is saved it is worth it.

Problem is though, after all of the years and the billions wasted on John Howard's gun buy-back and gun laws, no-one has been able to demonstrate any worthwhile outcomes.

Again, I do not object to the government spending my hard-earned tax dollars for good measurable results, but I do question the ongoing wastage of resources on a bloated, unnecessarily complex, redundant and ineffectual abortion of a 'system' that was never better than a grab-bag of rules and controls dreamed up on the spot by people who knew nothing about risk management. In excess of twenty new taxes and fees were brought in over night in every State and Territory. A typical Howard 'initiative' one might say - all wind and taxes and plenty of 'never you mind'.

What people tend to forget and probably because were ignorant of regulations then and now is that there was already an effective licensing system in place before Howard. It wasn't helped by the Howard inspired changes that just created a mountain of redundant bureaucratic paperwork on top of it. That is why the States had to be bullied and blackmailed into bringing in Howard's gun laws.

The changes resulted in the various weapons branches and local police stations being inundated with the busywork of monitoring every law abiding licensed firearms owner on computer (all listed as possible criminals) and through random flying visits to law abiding citizens homes to carry out inspections.

The criminals must have been popping champus corks when they found that hundreds of trained police in every state would henceforth be desk bound polishing a chair while looking over the shoulders of licensed firearms owners (whom they had previously certified were fine upstanding citizens without criminal record or intent, otherwise they would not have renewed their licences!).

contd..

For the police in the weapons branches and the white elephant gun registries, 'Howard's Way' spelt drudgery and doom - they joined the police force to collar criminals not monitor old fellows who shoot clay pigeons on Saturday.

Yet John Howard had imagined that crooks would be interested in applying for licences and in registering their weapons. That way, JH could refuse their bits of paper and grab their guns, or at least that was his (or Janette's?) reasoning. To date there is no evidence of any criminals recklessly seeking to register their tools of trade. No surprise there chaps, maybe Janette hadn't thought of that.

From dusk to dawn in my large city suburb there is only one police car with a trained police officer and a recruit. They have no back-up because there is no money to man the station at night.
The record is twenty minutes for them to attend a serious incident. Think about that and arrange to be molested or beaten to a pulp on a quiet night.

As I said at the start, I don't object to government spending my taxes for a good purpose but I would like to see some evidence of results and value for money. It is simply not good enough that government can waste billions on self-serving propaganda exercises like the gun buy-back and redundant gun laws, yet not be able to even provide adequate police for routine patrols by State police. However government says it cannot afford to reduce hospital waiting queues or provide support for mental health either. Is it any wonder I ask for more accountability and in facts and numbers, not emotional spin.

Nope, still don't like em!
Big boys with toys as far as I am concerned.
Ban all non essential firearms