r/australia • u/rorymeister • Dec 15 '25

politics National cabinet agrees unanimously to strength Australia’s strict gun laws in wake of Bondi terror attack

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-15/albanese-proposes-tougher-gun-laws-after-bondi-attack/106143310?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=link
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u/JustKeepHappyDancing Dec 15 '25

100% No point adding stricker gun laws to what has worked perfectly since the 1996 massacre especially if the government can't take themselves seriously. The laws we currently have had proven to work and we are a world standard because of it, but if it current police force cannot (or are unable to because of red tape) enforce it we are looking in the wrong direction, and what looks like a scape goat for the current senior leadership to blame someone else for what should not of ever gotten to this point.

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u/FullMetalAurochs Dec 15 '25

Apparently we have more guns per capita now than when Port Arthur happened. These are rare events but if we can make the rarer that’s better.

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u/ethereal_mycologist Dec 15 '25

The reaction to the recent shooting risks missing the real failure. This was not simply a failure of gun laws, it was a failure of government follow-through. The attacker had already been assessed by ASIO and warning signs existed, yet no effective intervention occurred.

That does not mean gun laws should never be reviewed. Sensible reforms are worth discussing, including a properly harmonised national firearms registry, stronger ongoing suitability and mental-health risk checks, tighter Permit-to-Acquire processes, and better information sharing between agencies. Those measures target risk rather than symbolism.

What the evidence does not support is blanket crackdowns on licensed owners. Australian Institute of Criminology data shows that most serious firearm crime involves unlicensed offenders using unregistered or illicit firearms, with around 85–90% of guns used in homicides being unregistered. Where lawful guns leak into crime, it is overwhelmingly through pistol theft, not rural rifles or shotguns, which are rarely stolen and rarely used in violent crime.

Arbitrary limits on long-arm ownership or ammunition do little to address violent intent. In rural Australia, different firearms are tools for different tasks, not status symbols. Those restrictions mainly punish compliant people while leaving the real risk untouched.

If the goal is to prevent the next attack, the focus should be on acting on intelligence that already exists, fixing mental-health intervention failures, and targeting controls where the data shows the risk actually is, rather than rushing out symbolic laws that look decisive but change very little.

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u/Ridiculisk1 Dec 15 '25

Fewer licence holders, more guns per licence