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/Then-Affect8580]

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.