By Byron Kaye
SYDNEY, Dec 15 (Reuters) – After Australia’s worst mass shooting in 1996, it took the government 12 days to ban semi-automatic weapons, organise a gun buyback scheme and introduce a licensing system to weed out people considered unfit to carry a weapon.
Sunday’s shooting at a beachside Jewish celebration in Sydney’s Bondi, which left 15 people dead as well as one of the two suspects, has shaken the country’s long-standing faith in that gun control system – among the world’s toughest – and raised new questions about whether it remains fit for purpose.
Australia’s gun ownership system has been widely credited with one of the lowest gun homicide rates, per capita. But the number of guns held legally has risen steadily for more than two decades and now, at four million, exceeds the number before the 1996 crackdown, think-tank the Australia Institute said earlier this year.
The fact that one of the Bondi suspects had a gun licence and six registered weapons raises questions about whether Australia should toughen its laws further, gun control groups and researchers said.
“Events like this feel unimaginable here, which is a testament to the strength of our gun laws,” said Gun Control Australia president Tim Quinn in a blog post about the attack.
“It is essential that we ask careful, evidence-based questions about how this attack occurred, including how any weapons were obtained and whether our current laws and enforcement mechanisms are keeping pace with changing risks and technologies.”
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that “if there is any action required in terms of legislative response, we will certainly have it.”
Chris Minns, New South Wales state premier, whose jurisdiction includes Sydney, said he would consider recalling state parliament to fast-track new gun legislation.
“It’s time we have a change to the law in relation to the firearms legislation … but I am not ready to announce it today. You can expect action soon,” Minns told reporters, without going into detail.
As things stood, the licence held by one of the suspects entitled him to own the weapons he had, NSW police commissioner Mal Lanyon told reporters.
Minns, the premier, said police had recommended an audit of gun licences in Australia’s most populous state, adding that “the granting of a firearms licence in perpetuity is clearly not fit for purpose”.
Maya Gomez, a lecturer in criminology at Swinburne University of Technology, said NSW gun licence holders must first prove a genuine reason for needing a weapon.
In the aftermath of the Bondi shooting, “questions may turn on the genuine reason provided in terms of the amount, as well as the reasons linked to the types of guns registered and used in the attack”, Gomez said in an email.
(Reporting by Byron Kaye and Renju Jose; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
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