Aside: "Assault Weapon" is the misnomer. It's elastic and expands if you accept it in legislation (compliant today gets labelled loophole gets banned tomorrow).
Fedorov as Assault Rifle: intermediate caliber (6.5x50mm) check; smaller than the battle rifle, check; detachable magazine, check; select fire, check; can handle the roles of submachinegun for close quarters yet rifle accurate for longer range (200 meters plus), check; quad picatinney rails, ... nope.
That photo. MP40 with the barrel hacked at the barrel nut with less than 3 inches barrel, no forearm under the receiver, custom taped handgrip (I can't tell if it's electrician's tape or the fancy friction tape but it's black). Aussie biker gangs get caught making MAC10 copies in their workshops. I assume the guy who had this gun had no connections.
From the story: "Just last week, the country initiated a national gun amnesty in response to growing terrorism threats and the flow of illicit firearms across its borders, reports the BBC. ... In 1996, a similar amnesty went into effect in response to shootings in Port Arthur, Tasmania, that led to 35 deaths. After destroying 650,000 firearms in that amnesty, the BBC notes that gun crimes dropped quickly."
The 1996 "amnesty" was not similar; registered owners were paid fair market value to turn in registered semi-auto and pump-action long guns. Nobody knows who owns the illicit guns that flowed across Australia's "borders" (the Pacific) so ordering them to "turn them in and we'll pay for them or else we know where you live" aint gonna work.
I believe NAS NRC 2004 and even Tim Lambert questioned that last "factoid"; the slow decline going on before the 1996 turn-in continued after the turn-in, then stalled.
