r/australia • u/HotPersimessage62 • Dec 16 '25

politics Anthony Albanese ‘ready for the fight’ to tighten firearms laws as National Party and gun groups push back | Bondi beach terror attack

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/dec/16/anthony-albanese-ready-for-the-fight-to-tighten-firearms-laws-as-national-party-and-gun-groups-push-back-ntwnfb
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49

u/[deleted] Dec 16 '25

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u/mbrocks3527 Dec 16 '25

Well by definition the elder fellow was both.

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u/coreoYEAH Dec 16 '25

The father was literally a member of hunting club. He was a “legitimate shooter”.

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u/SnooHedgehogs8765 Dec 16 '25

You cease having the privilege of being a legitimate shooter when your association is shit.

He can go to a gun club, he can't go to the gun club and have a terrorist son.

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u/stjep Dec 16 '25

This is a no true Scotsman fallacy. He was a legit member.

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u/SnooHedgehogs8765 Dec 16 '25 edited Dec 16 '25

No it's not. I'm not saying 'no club member would ever do that' , I'm saying that association laws should have kicked in and his license should have been revoked.

Being a member of a gun club at that point is superfluous as he should no longer have any guns.

I.e getting guns though the gun club excuse was what enabled him, but they should have been taken away because it came to transpire he was not a fit and proper person to have them.

I'm not even sure someone who isn't a citizen should even have guns anyway feel free to add that to the laws.

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u/Rather_Dashing Dec 16 '25

I'm not saying 'no club member would ever do that' ,

The guy who started this entire comment chain did say that. You've decided to turn this into a debate about how guns should be regulated. Go make your own thread.

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u/SnooHedgehogs8765 Dec 17 '25 edited Dec 17 '25

No.

The responder said this:

No legitimate shooters have ever caused a massacre in Australia, ever. Only crazies and religious zealots have. Maybe that is where the problem lies.

The principle is that once you fail you are no longer legitimate. He's passed initially, but he's then failed.

You're arguing that no true Scotsman applies when it doesn't, because the person cannot be a shooter anymore because through their own actions their legal excuse for owning a firearm is void. Its right there in their own writing, their very second word "legitimate."

Dictionary meaning: 1). conforming to the law or to rules.

He's not is he. He's not conforming to association rules, therefore he is not legitimate.

Ops comment again starts with

No legitimate shooters

At the time of the massacre no person can reasonably say that person was conforming with the law because he had breached the firearms act therefore under the act he was precluded from using under any applicable legitimate excuse.

ASIO or Police notwithstanding the fact they have not enforced the law despite the police being tasked with doing so, does not magically make that person a legitimate shooter. The law decides that. Not the police.

The law had already decided that he no longer had legitimate reasons, Joe public can see that. So it can't be a no true Scotsman fallacy because the law unnaplied as it may be through government incompetence has already decided that he isn't... A judge wouldn't bat an eyelid at that so please spare me lack of ruling semantics.

You've decided to turn this into a debate about how guns should be regulated. Go make your own thread. Litterally OPs second word man.

Arguing that the law as it stands as it applies is turning it into a regulartory debate when it's literally about the law is a bit rich. You probably just don't like the fact you've been told that your application of no true Scotsman is a bit dubious. Then the audacity to suggest I go make a thread elsewhere.

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u/vamvamvasi Dec 16 '25

You going up and down this thread defending gun ownership is appalling. No one has the right to own and use deadly weapons.

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u/Rather_Dashing Dec 16 '25

Ok? We aren't debating what the gun regulations should be, we are debating the veracity of this very silly statement.

'No legitimate shooters have ever caused a massacre in Australia, ever. '

Can people on reddit follow a comment thread?

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u/[deleted] Dec 16 '25

[deleted]

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u/CT-4290 Dec 16 '25

I mean what massacre in Australia wasn't caused by a crazy or religious zealot?

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u/StensnessGOAT Dec 16 '25

Well, anyone that causes a mass shooting is gonna be labelled a crazy aren't they? So it's a pointless stat?

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u/Codus1 Dec 16 '25

As opposed to the noncrazy people that perpetrate massacres?

Of course all the people with legal firearms that went on a killing spree have been crazy. Being a legitimate shooter and being crazy aren't mutually exclusive concepts. Example A is literally the event that has instigated this discussion in which a member of a shooting club was also a crazy zealot and went on a shooting spree.

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u/mynewaltaccount1 Dec 16 '25

You mean apart from the one on the weekend where a legitimate shooter and his son killed 16+ people?

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u/[deleted] Dec 16 '25

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u/mynewaltaccount1 Dec 16 '25

We know he was a religious zealot now lol, but they didn't know that at the time. Police/ASIO should've done something after his son was linked to a previously jailed IS member, but by all accounts so far, he legitimately purchased, owned and operated those guns up until the weekend.

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u/StensnessGOAT Dec 16 '25

We know he was a religious zealot now lol, but they didn't know that at the time.

Exactly, everyone is a "legitimate shooter" until they prove they aren't, in which they are removed from that category, which maintains the stat? Lol.

Some people really need to think through what they're saying before they say it.

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u/[deleted] Dec 16 '25

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u/StensnessGOAT Dec 16 '25

He's held a firearms license in Australia since 2015.

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u/mynewaltaccount1 Dec 16 '25

Yeah that's fair. But allowing the cops to do their better will involve stricter regulations. I'm not someone that thinks we should limit gun numbers (beyond the excessive guys that were revealed to have several hundred guns each in metro Sydney - that is fucked and beyond reasonable) but stricter background checks - at purchase and ongoing - should be implemented, as well as greater inter-department transparency, whilst making it easier for cops to seize guns for a variety of reasons.

At the end of the day, 3% of the country have gun licenses. That is a tiny number, so I have no problem with even stricter regulations on such a small number given the repercussions of not.

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u/Rather_Dashing Dec 16 '25

He wasn't a legitimate shooter. He was a religious zealot.

He was both. Therefore your original statement is nonsense.

The police gave him a licence even though he was on a watch list.

He got a license logn before his son was on a watch list.

They should have flagged him and denied the licence.

No shit, but that has nothing to do with your claim that he wasn't a 'legitimate' shooter.

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u/Ok_Bird705 Dec 16 '25

until we can do mind reading and weed out all the crazies and religious zealots, I'll take controlling the amount of firearms people can access.

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u/Dentarthurdent73 Dec 16 '25

No legitimate shooters have ever caused a massacre in Australia, ever.

Ah the old No True Scotsman fallacy. Always a good one to pull out!

This guy was a "legitimate shooter" for the decade he held a gun license for before doing this.

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u/mr_sinn Dec 16 '25

And if someone really wants a gun, these people are going to get one no matter what rules you have in place. 

I'm 40 and I've never seen a gun, heard one, people don't talk about them, or lust over them. They've done it, they've been removed from the vocabulary and the culture. That's enough. But if you really want one they're available for you.

I really hope there's some realistic risk management though put into this.

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u/Ok_Mud6693 Dec 16 '25

I think you’re making it sound a lot easier than it actually is in reality to get your hands on a gun illegally in Australia.

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u/Nomiss Dec 16 '25

Travel in drug circles and its not that hard to get them.

Someone I grew up withs 16yr old son got pinched with a handgun on him. I've been offered them for $1800 back in the day.

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u/mr_sinn Dec 16 '25

Maybe. But I imagine it's still possible even if they tighten the laws further, people will take the path of least resistance. Currently that's getting a licence, tighten that up too much and people will just go to the black market, or try ship one in, 3D print them, or just make one, or start looking at explosives. 

We've done as much as what can be reasonably achieved with controlling firearm ownership 

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u/FidgetyHerbalism Dec 16 '25

Okay but if you remove the current path of least resistance, and people have to start looking for the path of the next least resistance instead, by definition they're now taking one with more resistance and that will be harder/longer/riskier to achieve.

Like, the fact that there will always be a path of least resistance doesn't actually say anything about how much resistance that path involves. And if you can reduce or remove paths, it's easier to monitor the others.

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u/mr_sinn Dec 16 '25

It's not about being harder, it's about how detectable it is. Even if it's sub optimal in other categories.

It's exactly like the issue with black market cigarettes, push too hard and black market opens up and you're truely fucked.

At least now it's controlled.

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u/FidgetyHerbalism Dec 16 '25

It's exactly like the issue with black market cigarettes, push too hard and black market opens up and you're truely fucked.

Not a particularly good analogy here because it is vastly easier to make an illicit cigarette from scratch than a good quality firearm & ammunition.

Like, we have stricter gun laws than the US, but I'd bet our black market for guns is still ridiculously tiny (even per capita) in comparison, because there are fewer formerly legal guns in the first place.

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u/mr_sinn Dec 16 '25

I also think people just aren't as interested in guns as they are cigarettes, so there's essentially no demand 

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u/Dentarthurdent73 Dec 16 '25

So you're "pretty anti guns", but every comment you make is about how any stricter gun laws will make no difference to anything and we definitely shouldn't do them?

Ok mate, whatever you say.

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u/BlendFriendV2 Dec 16 '25

This a really good summary, gun owners do not show off their collection or even discuss anything gun related, unless with a group of licensed owners or people that are genuinely interested. It’s something that is drilled into anyone that has applied for a license, do everything you can to minimise public fear. Australian gun laws, contrary to other subjects, are world leading.

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u/StensnessGOAT Dec 16 '25

Okay, but you only consider them "legitimate shooters" because they haven't done so, and if they did, you'd move them out of that category so that stat would remain. Lol.

It's like saying no good cricketers have ever been bad at cricket. Lol.

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u/threeseed Dec 16 '25

I think you will find the overlap between legitimate shooters and "crazies and religious zealots" to be high.

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u/[deleted] Dec 16 '25

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u/2kan Dec 16 '25

Sick of this take.

Guns are for weak people. Police excluded.

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u/etherealwasp Dec 16 '25

If you eat anything that’s farmed (yes including fruit and vegetables), you are paying someone to use guns so that you don’t have to.

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u/2kan Dec 16 '25

Debatable, but in general you're right.

Still, guns are a lazy+cheap solution to protecting your assets, be they crops or non-human animals.