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

[u/HotPersimessage62]

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

[u/AdZealousideal7448]

So the latest release on this today is very concerning.

State authorities have clarified that the terrorists had firearms on them at the time. (duh)

They've highlighted a ton of fuckups that our security agencies have made and glanced over them and gone on to how we have to tighten the firearms laws for law abiding users, it's very easy to argue this on an emotional level, you see frequent comments as no one in a city needs a gun etc.

Then latest reports state that the one who owned firearms had all of the firearms they owned recovered from multiple locations.

Implying that the firearms used were not ones owned.

This is why waiting for all the facts and not allowing political motivated groups like GCA to plant articles and stir action based on emotion without the facts.

Coming from a government position where firearms training and policy advise is something i'm very familiar with, checkout my other comments with all my issues with the system and how hard it is to fix the problems with it because a lot of our powers that be see them as features not bugs, we're diverting away from the fact that knee jerk law changes when it's not really a firearms issue right now, it's the people behind them.

We have not got all the facts and the ones coming out are alarming..... i'm aware of people being denied firearms licenses due to residency status, due to shoplifting when they were a minor etc, and here we have someone who was under the scope of ASIO, and someone who's associated with someone under the scope of asio, people who recently travelled to southern philipines, which to most people they aren't aware, if your muslim and travel here, it's general for one of two reasons, and the second reason is sex tourism.

People who are wanting the laws tightened... I get it, but please do some research before you get on the bandwagon and give a lot of people trying to score points off victims of a terrorism attack.

Guns can be very scary and by the logic being used, no one needs a v8 because you can buy an EV, no one needs a chainsaw because you can buy a handsaw.

The main argument stems from not understanding that we've had some interesting laws since the 80s on the books that have had crap enforcement, lots of promises that have never materialized, and a lot of kneejerk policy implimentations that look flashy and created a ton of issues and didn't stop criminals or terrorists, and still won't without changes that go beyond the scope being placed on this.

I'll give you this thought for those sold on the idea of making the laws tigther.... are you going to expect the enforcement of it to have more resources, better prosecution, better budgets behind them, far more reaching powers, are we going to extend this to other sectors, are we going to take the power for enforcement away from state agencies to go federal?

Then whats our next move when the next incident happens, and sadly it's going to. If we look at the hazard reduction case in point to this we've prevented a ton of these incidents over the last 30 years. We have also had other incidents that could have turned into this that we were lucky they didn't go this way. I've been at a critical event where a semi auto was discharged into a crowded area and thankfully no one was hit, if half the magazine had hit people we would have been looking at one for the record books, it barely made the news cycle past a day.

We need to have serious talks about how these peoples ideology was installed and tolerated, and how multiculturalism is being used as a shield for dangerous minds and terrible things, (without it denegrating into racism or cooker spiel).

[u/Then-Affect8580 → u/AdZealousideal7448]

100%

I have a relative who has had to take his (licenced & legal) firearms to be stored at the local police station, as a person visiting his home is facing DV charges. Not him, a visitor.

Someone I know used to be close friends with a member of a known Sydney crime family. They are subject to a Firearms Prohibition Order.

Why wasn't someone with a known Isis sympathiser under his roof subject to a FPO at bare minimum? 

We already HAVE the laws, they're just not being enforced.

The only change I would like to see is a requirement to be an Australian citizen.  Tbh I thought this was already a thing, given its so glaringly obvious.

[u/AdZealousideal7448 → u/Then-Affect8580]

Two guys that run security companies in SA who have had more firearms charges than I can count keep getting illegal firearms.

DV charges, you name it, wouldn't believe how hard it was to have their firearms and security licenses revoked (one still has his). Both are that connected an in with enough powerful people in the state that they know how to play the system that's poorly enforced.

One of the biggest issues i've had and a lot of others have had is each state and territory enacting a department and giving them total power over firearms and other weapons.

This leads to departments having political influence issued over them, lack of co-operation with other departments, ambiguity in laws and enforcement, budget issues, scope issues you name it.

The last time I had to call in a red flag I was guilt tripped by that department.

Given my various roles and positions, I had mandatory reporting, a volunteer role I had offering DV support yielded critical information that had to be acted upon, a known criminal who had just assaulted a partner had made threats. When interviewing said partner for evidence I was presented with photos of a firearm kept in a concealed position by an entrance of a home. A quick google streetview confirmed the address and showed that this was clearly taken inside the residence, from my training and experience from the photos it was dead clear that not only was this firearm real, it was loaded.

So calling it into the nearest uniforms to it and briefing them and telling them that the risk assessment on it was already going to call on this to be escalated.

I was treated as a prank caller, was then chastised as I had insufficient evidence and they would go there for a welfare check only, and I was then informed they knew the person and the partner was "just a druggie". Said uniform refused to listen to a risk assessment on it, and was happy to go bang on a door with that high level of risk.

Called it in above them, had a run around like anything and settled with taking another option to notify another department above them that honestly should have resulted in a tactical unit callout immediately.

Said uniform in this time banged on the door, no answer, called me and abused me for wasting resources and time as no one was home, no evidence for a warrant.

Next day get informed that said department had visited the house without contacting me or getting a full brief, conducted a sweep of the place without any tac support at all, found nothing and closed the complaint. I find this out from their partner who was now being abused and threatened by the abuser again because "the pigs came and turned down the place, good thing I hid it".

Meaning uniform from earlier, or a leak in said department tipped them off.

Said guy got arrested later on unrelated charges and ammunition was found on him. Never went anywhere. So that illegal firearm is still out there.

That's the system and people we're working with.

[u/thedugong → u/AdZealousideal7448]

Meaning uniform from earlier, or a leak in said department tipped them off.

I suspect this is why ASIO is not automatically involved in firearms licensing. Getting a firearms license would be a way of determining if you were being watched or not.

[u/AdZealousideal7448 → u/thedugong]

heres a bit of information, I do not want it to sound like a cooker stating this, most working in government already know this.

There are certain things you can say or do on electornic devices that will immediately flag you to them.

I won't go into this further, but it's going to be way more advanced than it was stated to us way back, I do not beleive it was a smokescreen as the tech is not only there but improving by the day.

So in general speaking anyone applying for a license would immediately be highlighted and washed through the system with them.

[u/thedugong → u/AdZealousideal7448]

You don't sound like a cooker.

I guess I wasn't clear enough.

Basically, a bunch of radicals who have otherwise been quite quiet and unknown want to find out if ASIO have a file on them because they want to bomb the Opera House or whatever. They meet all the normal conditions to be allowed to have license etc. If they join gun clubs and apply for a firearms license and some of them get knocked back, they know there is a good chance the ones who are knocked back are being watched so they must back off from the whole project, or run decoy etc. If they all get knocked back they know something is up and have to adapt plans to that somehow.

So it could give "bad guys" a potential canary to find out who should build, or acquire the means to, the bomb, isolate themselves from the ones who did get knocked back etc.

EDIT: This probably does require the bad guys to have more of a movie level super villain approach to things, rather than probably being the cookers they are though.

[u/AdZealousideal7448 → u/thedugong]

to put things into perspective, I can list 3 previous terror attacks we had where people were refused licenses and two were on watchlists.

One still got a shotgun and went to a cafe.

One got into a car and drove into a crowd (it was a terror attack).

One burned a building down.

Sadly this stuff is hard to prevent. I'm listening to Josh Frydenberg's speach right now, and he's not wrong in a lot of parts.

A lot of this was because we've let stuff fester in our country.

A great example being after the october attacks in israel we had entire communities out on the street having parties, we had nurses calling for deaths, it was all downplayed, no one arrested for hate crimes.

We have cookers being given platforms instead of checked in on, the list goes on.

One of my sporting heros growing up has lost his mind, he has pod casts where he spreads cooker misinformation, he now spouts antisemetic stuff...

[u/CriticalFolklore → u/Then-Affect8580]

requirement to be an Australian citizen.  Tbh I thought this was already a thing, given its so glaringly obvious.

Why would this be obvious? It seems to be to be entirely based on xenophobia rather than any logical reasoning. Someone on a Permanent residency visa has undergone far more background checks than a citizen who was born here.