🔗 Share this article

Following the tragedy of the awful attack at Bondi, Australia is confronting several pressing conversations. There is a long-overdue national focus on anti-Jewish sentiment, an ongoing concern about public safety, and inquiries about the way such an event could happen. However, from the perspective of a health professional and Australian Jew, the most important dialogue we are now having revolves around firearms.

Ten Years of Cautions and a Successful Response

Public health experts have been issuing warnings about firearms for a minimum of a ten-year period. Following the events of the Port Arthur tragedy, Australians came together and enacted a suite of reforms to reduce gun violence across the country. And it worked. Prior to 1996, the nation experienced roughly one mass shooting per year. Over the following years, there have been extremely rare major events, with none approaching the fatalities of the incidents in the 1980s and 1990s.

This Recent Attack and the Function of Existing Regulations

Even during the Bondi tragedy, the nation's firearm regulations were not entirely useless. Reports indicate the individuals involved might have been armed with manually-operated long guns and at least one straight-pull shotgun. These firearms are limited to firing a single bullet at a time, necessitating a physical action to chamber the subsequent shot. Although these guns are capable of being discharged rapidly with lethal results, they remain far slower and less efficient than the high-capacity, self-loading rifles frequently used in overseas mass shootings. The casualty count at Bondi could have been much greater if more advanced firearms had been available.

Stopping another Bondi requires unity across all states. And unfortunately, there are already fissures in the facade.

A System Under Strain

However, the horrific consequences of the incident reveals that current gun laws are failing. Crafted in the late 1990s with the best of intentions, years have eroded their effectiveness. Alarmingly, there are now a greater number of guns in Australia than before the Port Arthur massacre, with some individuals in urban areas owning collections of hundreds of weapons.

We have been overconfident and it has exacted a terrible price.

The Road Ahead: Proposed Reforms

In the time after the Bondi tragedy, there have been numerous declarations regarding new firearm legislation. The state of NSW in particular will soon introduce a package of measures to reduce the public danger posed by firearms. The federal government has proposed a new gun buyback, and there is potential for a countrywide gun database, notwithstanding the complexities of aligning state and federal jurisdictions.

These measures are only possible if the nation acts in unison. As noted, when it comes to gun control, the country is dependent on its least stringent jurisdiction. This is the very nature of the Australian system – regulations in one state are easily circumvented if they can be bypassed with a journey across a border.

Addressing Frequent Arguments

We hear the inevitable argument that "firearms are not the killers, individuals are". This is true in the identical way that aircraft do not fly passengers, aviators do. Yes, aircraft require operators, but it would be quite challenging for a captain to transport 500 people internationally without the aircraft. The horrific violence witnessed at Bondi would be extremely difficult without firearms, and would have been significantly less lethal if the alleged terrorists had not had access to the weapons they possessed.

Balancing Need and Safety

There are legitimate reasons for some Australians to own guns. Managing livestock or culling pests in many places is extremely difficult without them. A total ban of firearms from the country is impractical, as in some cases they are essential tools.

What we can do – what we must do – is to ensure that firearm legislation are updated to accurately reflect the society we live in today. Australia's laws have long been the envy of the world, but time and distance has done its work and the nation is no longer as safe as it once was. It is critical to take the lessons of Bondi to heart, and make certain that future generations are as protected as previous generations have been.

As one friend remarked after the Bondi attack, "things like this just don't happen here". They don't, but only because the country has made concerted efforts to maintain its security. As nightmarish as the incident was, there is an aspiration that it can become the last one the nation experiences.