Papua New Guinea's Police Commissioner says he wants to implement a gun buyback scheme to ease the proliferation of illegal firearms within the country.
Papua New Guinea police commissioner David Manning Photo: Supplied
David Manning said about 80 percent of serious crimes in PNG were committed with some form of firearm, whether home or factory made.
Firearms were also used in the recent killing of police officers in Enga, Hela, Milne Bay and Porgera.
Mr Manning said he believed a gun buyback scheme was the best way to remove the large number of illegal firearm from the country.
Firearms were illegally obtained by communities to defend themselves against tribal enemies and those guns had in recent times been used in other criminal activities or hired out to others, he said in a statement.
Under the commissioner's proposal, which he will put to government, there would be a three month nationwide gun amnesty coupled with a large scale awareness campaign.
All guns surrendered within the amnesty period would be bought by the government and no action would be taken against anyone who surrendered their illegal firearms.
He said after the amnesty he would recommend life imprisonment for anyone caught with an illegal firearm.
