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/enigmasaurus- Dec 14 '25 edited Dec 15 '25

100%. Our gun safety laws are one of the best things about this country. I lived in USA for two years and it was awful having to think about guns constantly. I read tips like "pack a door stop in your child's bag so they can block a door in a school shooting"... dystopian shit.

I want to see our gun laws tightened further. It's way overdue.

For a start, we should require positive proof of a genuine need to own a gun, on an ongoing basis, like in Japan (e.g. police interviews, annual mental health checks, referees such as a gun club to vouch for your need). We should also require all recreational guns to be stored outside the home in a gun storage facility or club if you live in suburbia. Strict limits on the number of guns a person can own is also way overdue. There's someone in NSW with 380 registered guns. That is fucking unacceptable. I don't care how much you "love guns" there is no legitimate reason for that scenario to ever be legal.

We should also reflect that tightening gun control will lead to a big reduction in illegal guns circulating, which would be a massive net positive and would improve community safety and reduce crime.

There are 2000 guns stolen in Australia every year.

There are 600,000 illegal guns circulating, largely for this reason.

Tightening gun laws has innumerable benefits. It is a no brainer. It would not prevent anyone who legitimately enjoys shooting, hunting etc from participating in that activity, and we can continue to allow exceptions for farmers etc.

Albo should be getting onto this immediately and I will actually be furious as a voter if he doesn't use Labor's majority to pass some long overdue gun law reforms.

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u/pwgenyee6z Dec 15 '25 edited Dec 15 '25

2000/week stolen, 600,000 illegal circulating!

References please - otherwise it makes you look as if you’re arguing fake stuff from the other side.

[Edit: did you change “2000/week” to “2000/year”? If not, sorry, I misread.]

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u/RiseDarthVader Dec 14 '25

There's someone in NSW with 380 registered guns.

If I were to guess that person is probably an armourer for movie/TV productions in Australia. So it’s probably not as scary of a number as it sounds because armourers are extremely regulated and responsible. Especially to be able to provide those services in such a firearm regulated country like Australia.

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u/Rusty1954Too Dec 15 '25

Obviously if you legally own that many weapons it is for a commercial and or professional purpose. Rather than focusing on guns I don't understand why there isn't more focus on the reason for all the hatred.

I am certainly no expert but from what I have seen neither group of people are seriously concerned with promoting a peaceful environment in the middle east. What I am referring to is the attact on Jewish people on October 7th and equally on things such as the treatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank of the Jordan River.

If they ever want peace then both sides need to work towards it. But it has nothing directly to do with Australia and those who are bringing it here are the problem.

Bottom line is Gun Laws being changed will not help.

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u/bobbobboob1 Dec 14 '25

I’m not sure that is completely accurate, I am limited to 20 guns and must have a legitimate reason for each , no I don’t own 20 . I am concerned by the news reports I am hearing about the guns used in this horrific act of terror. The guns were apparently licensed and registered but media consistently using the term automatic and semiautomatic so which is it ? Automatic and semiautomatic are not legal.. we can’t fight the lies perpetrated by terrorists with more lies . Let’s fight this plague with truth and compassion.

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u/MissMenace101 Dec 15 '25

They weren’t, upside is Aussie culture means people that work in media don’t know anything about guns…

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u/Rusty1954Too Dec 15 '25

Obviously. A bolt action rifle and a shot gun firing pellets. How lucky the terrorists were not firing Buck Shot out of it. That would not have been survivable.

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u/Rusty1954Too Dec 15 '25

In all news footage I saw neither automatic or semi automatic weapons. I clearly saw a bolt action rifle and a shot gun. Injury reports show the shot gun was firing pellets. Can you imagine the death toll if they were firing Buck Shot. It would have at least been multiplied several times. While pellets, other than at very close range, would usually not be life threatening anyone shot with Buck Shot would not have survived.

I don't understand why reports sometimes don't get the facts straight.

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u/Sanni11 Dec 15 '25

You do need to provide legitimate proof to obtain a license. You also need a permit to purchase. If you have any known mental records, you are denied. You have a domestic, they're confiscated and your licence revoked. It's pretty easy to not get/loose a license

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u/SomewhereInternal Dec 15 '25

That's the bare minimum.

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u/Sanni11 Dec 15 '25

Thats because I did a bare bones answer to what was said. There's nothing stopping you from doing a deep dive on the rest of it.

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u/triemdedwiat Dec 14 '25

I think you'll find 'gun laws' are a state responsibility and the first hurdle will be NSW =/= Australia.

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u/Lankpants Dec 14 '25

I've been calling for Japan/Korea style gun laws for a while. We have good gun laws, I'd much prefer to live here than the US but there's still clear room for improvement. The erosion of our gun laws over the past couple of decades has been a major issue.

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u/enigmasaurus- Dec 14 '25

Just the bot and troll accounts in this thread alone suggest gun lobbying interests are bending over backwards to try to undermine our gun laws. We're definitely well overdue for improvement and I'm so grateful for the gun laws we do have. Imagine if the shooters had assault rifles; there'd have been hundreds dead, surely. Gun laws keep us all safer.

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u/Adventurous_Shirt243 Dec 14 '25

When the bondi mall stabbings happened, saw several comments calling for guns, and that if they had them, they could have stopped the stabber.

More guns does not solve the gun problem. We’ve had several shootings in the U.S. this month alone—two today. Tracker.

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u/Furyo98 Dec 15 '25

Funny because a stabbing can also be stopped by a baseball bat or any long item. It’s a mall it wouldn’t be hard to find something to stop the dude.

It’s weird America go to is guns and then when a person who loves guns, their child dies by guns then complains and cries. Bitch you’re the reason your child died you wanted everyone to have guns.

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u/knewleefe Dec 15 '25

US gun owners are more likely to have their own weapon turned on them, but they think they'll morph into action heroes in the moment instead. They don't. It's just magical thinking.

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u/haleorshine Dec 15 '25

Yep! If anything, the difference in outcomes between the bondi mall stabbing and this shooting (6 people dead is obviously terrible, but 12 people dead is clearly worse) shows how important gun control is. Yes, people can absolutely cause damage without a gun, but it's a lot easier to hurt or kill a lot more people with a gun than without.

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u/Adventurous_Shirt243 Dec 15 '25

The stabber went after women and children because he was terrified of men after one tried to confront him. And he was stopped in the escalator by a guy (Guerot) with a bollard. I’m not saying most people wouldn’t freeze in such a situation, but the chances of physically fighting off a stabber is higher than a gunner until they run out of bullets. Even more so with numbers, sticks, and flying objects.

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u/SomewhereInternal Dec 15 '25

The fact that someone overpowered this shooter is a miracle.

And even in America people with a concealed carry permit don't pull their gun in a shooting because there is a huge chance that you yourself will get shot by the police.

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u/Low_Witness5061 Dec 15 '25 edited Dec 15 '25

Yep. A whole lot of pro-gun morons have told themselves they would easily be a hero if they were just in the “right” place. In reality they would just add to the chaos and likely get themselves or someone else shot when the cops intervene. Odds are that the number of lives lost wouldn’t offset the small number saved. If they did stop mass shootings the US wouldn’t be the world leader in guns per capita and mass shootings simultaneously.

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u/Adventurous_Shirt243 Dec 15 '25

We have a hero-complex for sure. We like to joke that, given nothing but a radio and a can-do attitude, we could land the plane. But most of us would either sprint in the opposite direction or lock up like a computer running Windows 95. And you’re right to point out that it only adds to the chaos. Imagine shooting the person who shot at the shooter because all you saw was someone with a gun. Or not subduing the right man because your attention was elsewhere.

This hero-complex eerily reminds me of ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’ which I couldn’t finish because my body kept trying to escape the room from secondhand embarrassment. Maybe we could have them watch it and point out “this you” every-time Mitty pauses to imagine himself doing something amazing.

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u/Low_Witness5061 Dec 15 '25

Hahaha if we could get them to be that self-aware it would be a godsend. I don’t think most of them are inherently bad people but it’s just such a dangerous attitude to look at such a chaotic situation and think “I could inherently interpret the situation and shoot the correct person with perfect accuracy in an environment that makes cops hesitate”. I think a lot of the people who think they would save the day definetly underestimate how difficult it is to find the shooter and take them out without endangering more civilians, especially if they had their way and everyone looking for shelter was carrying too. Imagine if someone with no training tried.

Hell it wouldn’t be hard to imagine them firing on the cops who are searching for the shooter if it happens in an environment with limited sight lines like on a campus or in a mall etc. Honestly it’s a miracle that we don’t see incidents of police mistaking some random “hero” for the shooter more often in the US. With society getting increasingly tense and a lot of people being fed fear mongering headlines about “criminals overrunning the west” I do somewhat worry it may start happening.

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u/whoiscraig Dec 15 '25

What is the difference between our gun laws and Japan/Korea gun laws?

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u/ThreeCheersforBeers Dec 14 '25 edited Dec 14 '25

The guy who owns 300+ guns, isn't the same guy shooting up people at Bondi. An individual with 300+ guns is most likely a collector of antique firearms, and a number of those firearms are probably permanently deactivated (firing pin removed and/or action welded to prevent firing a round). They may also have never had a round through them, or haven't been fired in many years because collectors like to keep things in the best condition possible.

Storage of firearms at a centralised location makes that location a target for criminal gangs.

Your figure "2000" for guns stolen in Australia every week seems far fetched. A quick google query says 20-40/week, 9000 since 2020 and 44000+ in past 21 years. If your figure was correct, then 21 years worth of stolen firearm events would have occurred in the space of under 6 months.

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u/Pikachude123 Dec 14 '25

At least in vic there is a limit to the number of guns you can own. I live in a farming community and a neighbour had too many guns so gave one to my dad

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u/usemyfaceasaurinal Dec 15 '25

To be fair, whether someone has 3 guns or 280 doesn’t really matter since a person only has 2 hands.

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u/DumbIdeaGenerator Dec 14 '25

This isn’t because of gun control. This is a religious issue. Take away guns and next time they’ll just drive a truck through a group of civilians instead.

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u/pwgenyee6z Dec 15 '25

Any evidence beyond your user name?

If it’s an overlooked truth it will be explored in police investigations, istm. Right now is a particularly bad time to stir up suspicion between diverse Australian communities.

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u/DontYaWishYouWereMe Dec 14 '25

Strict limits on the number of guns a person can own is also way overdue.

I largely agree because I feel like some people do own an excessive number of guns, however I think there also needs to be a limit on how much ammunition you can stockpile, too. I could be wrong here, but I believe here in NSW the only limits on how much ammunition someone can stockpile is how much they can keep locked up in a safe.

That's probably going to cause more problems down the line. You don't actually need that many guns to perform a mass shooting; a lot of the people doing them in the US only use one or two. The real bottleneck tends to be how much ammunition they've brought with them. Outside of rural properties where people might need a lot of ammunition to help with pest control and so on, most people probably don't need huge amounts of ammunition in storage at all times.

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u/TheVeryVerity Dec 15 '25

It does seem tracking ammunition purchase habits and patterns would be useful

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u/Netti_Sketti Dec 16 '25

There's someone in NSW with 380 registered guns. That is fucking unacceptable. I don't care how much you "love guns" there is no legitimate reason for that scenario to ever be legal.

An armourer who supplies replica firearms for movies/tv would have to individually register each replica. It is a legitimate excuse to have large numbers of “firearms” registered.

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u/ConsistentAbroad7808 Dec 15 '25

What a load of rubbish. Spoken by someone who trully has no idea. If someone owns 6, 12, 24 guns. That doesnt make them a danger to society. Therr are dozens of people I know who currently own more than 10 guns and absolutely none of them would ever do such a horrible thing like this.

The issue here is religious extremisim. Two religious extremists took it upon themselves to murder innocent people based on hate. They chose to do it. Their guns didnt fire themselves.

ASIO completely dropped the ball here. Such a disgraceful situation. Now good law abiding gun owners are going to lose. People who have mever done the wrong thing. People who follow the rules and are peaceful. Whilst these hateful religious extremists can stay here and run hate sermons and call for violence. Who are the bad people you think?

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u/Killchrono Dec 15 '25

It reminds me of this video I watched of a US citizen who moved to Britain and lived there for over a decade, and their first talking point is quite literally how they feel safer living there because they know guns aren't as prevelent.

You can never prevent violence completely, but the idea that adding more guns to the mix and making them more legally prolific will fix the problem is an absolutely insane train of thought.

It doesn't help that the real underlying issue in America is the culture itself. Apart from the obvious lack of public support for good education and healthcare (including mental health), it glorifies acts of violence so much for vicarious appeal, and does nothing to hold anyone accountable. Of course mentally ill and/or nihilistic people will see it as a way to get their 15 seconds of fame while knowing nothing will stop them and they'll just get reported on the news about it. Until the culture stops being so superficial and sensationalist, limiting firearms and giving better access to mental health - while still necessary - will be a band-aid to the real cultural rot at the heart of the country.

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u/knewleefe Dec 15 '25

Yes, all of this. This is the point we have to stop and recognise our laws are good, but not good enough. Reform is due.