CANBERRA, Australia - Australia will allow gun owners to hand in illegal firearms without penalty next year as concerns grow over gun crimes involving such weapons. Justice Minister Michael Keenan says police and justice ministers agreed at a meeting Friday to start a nationwide gun amnesty from the middle of 2017.

Sydney University gun policy analyst Philip Alpers says it will be the first Australia-wide amnesty since the gun buy-back program of 1996 that followed a lone gunman killing 35 people in Tasmania state.

That tragedy galvanized the government to impose tough legal restrictions on rapid-fire weapons and to buy back almost 700,000 newly outlawed guns.

An Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission report released Friday said there could be as many as 600,000 unregistered guns in Australia.