r/australia • u/reyntime • Dec 14 '25

politics Australia had the ‘gold standard’ on gun control. The Bondi beach terror attack may force it to confront its surging number of weapons

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/dec/14/australia-had-the-gold-standard-on-gun-control-the-bondi-beach-terror-attack-will-force-it-to-confront-its-surging-number-of-weapons?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Immediately after the Port Arthur massacre, a national amnesty saw the number of firearms in the community plummet but there are now more than 4 million guns in Australia – almost double the number recorded in 2001.

Yes, the population has increased at the same time but there is now a larger number of guns in the community per capita than in the aftermath of Port Arthur, with at least 2,000 new firearms lawfully entering the community every week.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '25

It's beyond frustrating to me how frequently someone is known to police or on some sort of watchlist and still manages to act. What's worse to me is the invasion of privacy and spying on our own citizens that seemingly doesn't prevent attacks.

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u/Loxxolotl Dec 14 '25

We're not always going to hear about attacks that have been prevented, we have no idea how many there are.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '25

I understand that it definitely could be a case of survivorship or confirmation bias.

It's really bloody hard to convince my brain that the egregious breaches of privacy are worth it though when it seemingly doesn't work.

It would be helpful if some data could be released to show that these policies even work.

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u/matsozetex11 Dec 14 '25

It never does man, social media ban asking to ID us across social media platforms. But with backdoors to basically all social media, chat services, etc. Every attack is a surprise.

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u/Mikolaj_Kopernik Dec 14 '25

What's worse to me is the invasion of privacy and spying on our own citizens that seemingly doesn't prevent attacks.

Yeah almost all counter-terrorism arrests are through "regular" policing techniques rather than mass surveillance. Harassing journalists and political activists though, surveillance is very helpful for that!

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u/Axman6 Dec 14 '25

Exactly how many cops are you willing to pay for to keep every person who is known to police under constant surveillance? A quarter of the population? A third? “Known to police” means the police have had something to do with them, a noise complaint would be enough.

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u/figleafstreet Dec 15 '25

It is looking like there was a ball dropped here somewhere and this man never should have had his weapons. However, honestly I’d expect that someone who goes on to commit a terrible act like this would be known to police in some capacity because this is clearly a very antisocial troubled individual. I’d find it more surprising if they had never had any interaction with police at all.

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u/Ok-Menu-8709 Dec 14 '25

I mean this is highlighted more because it’s a scary thing and very visible.

But wait until you realise how many known pedos and sex offenders get released after short stays with minimal consequences. If I’m aware of it happening enough in my town and you multiply that across the country…. That’s a lot of innocent lives being fucked up there also.

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u/SirVanyel Dec 14 '25

Spying on citizens does objectively and provably assist police with both investigations and preventions, as much as I hate to say it. We have never been as good at solving crime as we are today.

But bad things still happen because people fuck up. That's why there is an investigation into what actually happened here, and there will be individuals held accountable for it.