Judge: All guns should be dumped in the ocean (VIDEO)

Citing how well it worked in Australia, a judge in Portland, Oregon tells a defendant, “Nobody would have a gun. Not police, not security, not anybody. We should eliminate all of them.”

With murderer Marcell Lee Daniel Jr. silent in front of his bench, Multnomah County Circuit Judge Kenneth Walker blasted firearms as the uncharged culprit in court this week.

“If I could I would take all the guns in America, put them on big barges, and go dump them in the ocean,” says Walker in the above video from the Oregonian. “Nobody would have a gun. Not police, not security, not anybody. We should eliminate all of them. We could save 33,000 people a year if we didn’t have guns in this country.”

The solution? Australia bought up some 700,000 firearms in 1997 for $500 million, and disposed of them in various ways, including tossing several thousand military surplus Enfield and FN rifles into the Pacific Ocean. To be clear, a myriad of firearms remained in legal circulation and today there are an estimated 3 million guns in the hands of civilians ‘Down Under. But that did not deter Judge Walker’s argument.

“Australia after a major shooting rounded up all the guns, and they haven’t had near the death that we do here in this country,” says Walker.

Of course, facts being what they are, Melbourne– Australia’s second largest city– has seen 100 shootings since last January. In the past decade, firearms offenses have more than doubled from 2,308 to 4,947 in the city.

As for Daniel, he received 17 1/2 years in prison as a result of the 2014 drive-by shooting in North Portland that left Andrew Coggins dead. If he serves all of his time, Daniel will be released around age 42.

Speaking of Australia, life imprisonment is mandatory for murder in several states including Queensland, South Australia, and the Northern Territory.

Guess Walker hadn’t heard about that one.