# National Firearms Agreement The **National Firearms Agreement (NFA)** was announced on **10 May 1996**, twelve days after the [[Port Arthur Massacre]], by the [[John Howard]] government together with every Australian state and territory. It banned most automatic and semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, introduced uniform licensing and registration, and required a genuine reason — self-defence explicitly excluded — for firearm ownership. A national buyback followed: **more than 650,000 firearms** were surrendered and destroyed. ## Why it matters here The NFA is the single most-cited foreign policy precedent in American gun politics, invoked by both sides for opposite purposes, and the vault holds it for three structural reasons rather than for the outcome debate: - **It was done by the right, not to the right.** A conservative prime minister spent his own coalition's political capital, and the National Party's rural base revolted. - **Federalism was the mechanism, not the obstacle.** Firearms are a state matter in Australia; the Commonwealth used funding and agreement rather than a single federal statute — the structural question that any American analogue would face. - **There is no [[Second Amendment]] analogue.** Australia has no constitutional right to bear arms, which is the limit of the comparison and the reason the transfer argument is contested in both directions. ## See Also - [[Port Arthur Massacre]] - [[John Howard]] - [[Second Amendment]] - [[Australia]] - [[Australian History Hub]]