Brisbane, Australia
—
Australia already has a few of the world’s hardest gun legal guidelines, however the Bondi mass shooting could result in even harder guidelines as the realization spreads that they aren’t sturdy sufficient to stop bloodshed.
Restrictions have been tightened virtually 30 years in the past after a lone gunman armed with semiautomatic weapons killed 35 individuals at the Port Arthur historic vacationer web site in Tasmania.
The bloodbath shocked the authorities of the day into motion, and inside two weeks, new legal guidelines dictated robust guidelines on who could and couldn’t personal a gun.
Australia’s swift motion has been held up for instance that change is feasible. New Zealand did the identical after the Christchurch massacre in 2019, when an Australian-born right-wing terrorist live-streamed the bloodbath of 51 at two mosques in the metropolis.
Less than a month after the slaughter New Zealand launched a nationwide ban on semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles. Both nations launched amnesty and gun buyback schemes. Opposition arose in each nations, however the governments did it anyway.
Until Sunday, Australia had many years of proof that robust gun legal guidelines could make a rustic safer with one in all the world’s lowest gun murder charges, per capita.
Between July 2023 by June 2024 Australia noticed solely 31 gun-related murders, a murder charge of 0.09 per 100,000 individuals, based on knowledge from the Australian Institute of Criminology.
But the variety of weapons held legally has risen steadily for greater than twenty years and now, at 4 million, exceeds the quantity earlier than the 1996 crackdown, think-tank the Australia Institute mentioned earlier this yr.
The Bondi shooting has pressured a rethink about whether or not state legal guidelines are nonetheless match for function.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese introduced Monday after a gathering of the National Cabinet that state and territory leaders had agreed to pursue harder controls.
The new guidelines would imply solely Australian residents can maintain a gun license, and the quantity and kind of weapons they will personal could be restricted. Licenses would expire, beneath the plan, requiring extra frequent checks on gun house owners’ suitability to carry a license.
Work would additionally start on harder restrictions on the import of firearms and different weapons, together with “3D printing, novel technology and firearms equipment that can hold large amounts of ammunition,” the authorities mentioned in a press release.
Australia states and territories govern gun legal guidelines, however beneath the National Firearms Agreement agreed in 1996, all gun-owners are required to have a license and register their firearms in each jurisdiction.
But holes nonetheless exist.
The National Firearms Register is but to compile particulars of gun possession nationwide. A four-year program began final yr, and work’s underway throughout jurisdictions to merge their information.
Albanese mentioned work on the nationwide register could be carried out as rapidly as attainable, although he emphasised the problem of pulling collectively typically antiquated techniques.
“In some cases, some state jurisdictions still had paper identification. That was what we were dealing with,” he mentioned. “We are responding in a really practical way. If there’s more that can be done, we will do it. We will do whatever is necessary.”
In New South Wales, a number of forms of gun licenses can be found, however holders should solely use the firearm for the function specified. For instance, members of gun golf equipment can apply for a license that claims they’ll solely use the gun for sport and leisure functions.
As a member of a gun membership, the 50-year-old shooter in the Sydney assaults had a legitimate leisure gun license, police mentioned, with six registered firearms.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns has prompt the legal guidelines can be modified.
“We want to make sure that prospective reform and change in New South Wales has a lasting impact,” he mentioned throughout a press convention Monday.
“If you’re not a farmer, if you’re not involved in agriculture, why do you need these massive weapons that put the public in danger and make life dangerous and difficult for New South Wales police?” he added.