In 1996, in response to a massacre in Tasmania that killed 35 people, Australia banned automatic and semiautomatic guns including .22 rimfires, semi-automatic shotguns and pump-action shotguns. They also instituted a buyback program for the newly illegal weapons which saw over 600,000 turned in. In the decade after the law was introduced the firearm homicide rate fell by 59 percent, and the firearm suicide rate fell by 65 percent without a parallel increase in non-firearm homicides and suicides.