The federal government has announced plans to introduce a gun amnesty aimed at getting unregistered guns off the street.

Justice Minister Michael Keenan said the new legislation would give people an opportunity to hand in their guns without any penalty.

“This isn’t about people who legally own firearms, this is about targeting the grey market and the black market for guns,” he said.

“We have done this in the past in Australia and its been very successful in taking guns off the street that are not properly registered.”

Mr Keenan said he wanted to send the message that gun smuggling would not be tolerated. Anyone caught smuggling a gun would face a minimum jail sentence of five years.

“Anyone who smuggles a gun is going to go to jail for a significant amount of time,” he said.

“When we have a minimum sentence it shows you that we are deadly serious about stopping this type of crime.

“We’re also increasing the maximum time they can spend in prison.”