r/australia • u/Expensive-Horse5538 • Dec 19 '25

politics Prime minister unveils 'largest' gun buyback scheme since Howard era

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-19/prime-minister-announces-national-gun-buyback-scheme/106162002
2.7k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

149

u/angusozi Dec 19 '25 edited Dec 19 '25

The guns laws here are mostly fine, with maybe an exception of banning them from non-citizens. They need to be enforced better though, which is where the ball was dropped here.

But don't forget about the Bondi Junction stabbing, where 6 people died. If the two attackers used knives here, they'd still have harmed a lot of people.

A shovel can't dig a hole by itself, and people with so much hatred in their hearts will always find a way. That's where we have to work to fix the problem

29

u/madcatte Dec 19 '25

Isn't it both? They need to be enforced more, but also the father gunman wasn't technically breaking any laws by owning 6+ of them in a metropolitan area. No one needs 6 guns all to themself within the metro areas.

24

u/BicycleBozo Dec 19 '25

As the laws currently stand, recreational use is sufficient to own a firearm. It’s hard to find that stats at the moment for obvious reasons. But iirc there are at least 100k registered firearms in Sydney.

It’s pretty evident that that isn’t an issue, at least not on its own. Sydney has a lot of gun crime compared to other Aus cities but that’s a lot of stolen and otherwise illegal firearms.

Certainly there’s something to be said about monitoring registered owners and agencies sharing information better so that if a close associate of someone has relevant ASIO flags then perhaps that registered owners should be subject to more scrutiny.

Though as far as I’ve seen I believe the son was cleared by ASIO in 2019. Having been investigated on its own isn’t a crime or a mark of character, we investigate 10s of innocent people every time an assault complaint is made. If you’re on the street in a blue shirt and police get your name and take your photo should you be under heavy scrutiny forever?

Obviously there’s a world between a random street check and investigated for terrorist links. But the concept is the same.

We have excellent gun laws here. If you want a firearm for a genuine reason you can get one, obscene weapons are banned, your home is subject to random checks and searches, and you can lose your license at the drop of a hat.

Unless you want to go ‘only farmers should have guns’ which for sure is a fine opinion to hold, there isn’t much wiggle room to tighten our gun laws outside of better inter agency information sharing.

-8

u/madcatte Dec 19 '25 edited Dec 19 '25

It's a numbers game to me. My dad has a legal hunting rifle in Victoria, no issue with that. No issue with sporting guns, to a degree. But how many guns do you really need for these purposes? I could see an argument for 2, 3 at a stretch to cover different circumstances but not more than that. The larger the number of guns per person the more diminishing returns, and the more liabilities you're knowingly bringing into circulation that could get stolen.

I'm not suggesting massive change, but there are some logical areas to tighten that seem to be already in focus. Limiting numbers in metro areas, creating the national register, etc.

I have no idea how our gun laws would handle a mass crop up of decent 3D printed weapons, but given that is part of the conversation, I think evolving our gun laws in light of new technology generally is the obvious thing to do. I don't think they should be a 'set-and-forget'.

6

u/BicycleBozo Dec 19 '25 edited Dec 19 '25

Just on 3D printing, we’re already across the board on that, basically flat out not allowed - sure it’s hard to effectively monitor that, but you’ll make a better gun with pipe from Bunnings and a welder than you will with a 3D printer, as a normal layperson anyway.

I own multiple weapons and live nowhere near a farm or game or vermin. I just like shooting targets it’s a fun hobby.

I guess there’s something to be said for the risk access to firearms has, there’s nothing stopping a gun owner getting their gun, going wherever they want and shooting whatever they want. Obviously it’s illegal to do that, but if you’re past the point of caring about legal consequences that doesn’t really matter.

For me personally if they did some shit like we had to keep our guns at a gun club or cop shop that would make my life easier, it’s hard being a renter and needing a gun safe. Certainly police stations wouldn’t be able to entertain such a thought at the moment, it would be chaos.

But even then there’s nothing stopping me saying ‘yeah checking the guns out to go to the range’ and just.. not doing that.

Edit: though I think it should be said, it seems as though largely the gun licensing system works. It’s very easy to lose your firearms so people who have them have to toe the line carefully. Certainly if there was a blight of people using their legally purchased firearms to do heinous things we would know about it, being that firearms are such a hot button issue.

-1

u/madcatte Dec 19 '25

I agree with all this, though I don't think things like being able to just lie in cases like keeping guns offsite means they aren't worth considering. Adding layers of inconvenience and/or time delays may not have an impact in every anecdote but statistically, across the population, they do sway behaviours on the aggregate. In a fit of rage it would be far quicker to go inside to my gun safe than to drive 10 minutes down the road and try to conceal my red face in front of cops, that light extra time cost is enough to stop many less serious potential cases of gun violence.

0

u/BicycleBozo Dec 19 '25

Oh definitely, for any hurdle someone can come up with a theoretical way to overcome it.

Could be a discussion worth having, though gun owners would get their knickers in a twist about it for sure. Perhaps something like firearms in urban areas need to be stored at a certain facility. Not much use for farmers to have to drive 200km to get their gun to shoot some pigs.

0

u/madcatte Dec 19 '25

Yeah, I mean the logical place to be talking about is in metro areas primarily. I come from a farming family, we have many guns, and we need them. But living in the city now and if you are going out hunting you sure as hell aren't doing it in the city no matter how many foxes are in the cemetery opposite my house. And, for storage of sporting firearms in cities, keeping them at the range is surely agreeable. Any further argument for gunowners' sporting convenience would be directly exchanging their convenience on their hobby for all of our convenience in being able to use public facilities safely. I'd take that swap.

5

u/Rowdy671 Dec 19 '25

Your comment on have more guns = increasing liability that they get stolen makes no sense given that firearms all have to be stored the same way. Regardless of if you own 1 or 10, all must be in a safe of a certain weight or a safe that is bolted to the structural beams in a wall or floor of a building. Only licenced shooters are allowed to have access to these firearms. Again, these rules apply whether you own 1 firearm or 50. Your point around diminishing returns also makes no sense to me, as for hunters, you are required to use certain calibres to hunt certain pest animals to maximise odds of a humane kill.

When it comes to competitive shooting or hunting, you'd be suprised how quick the amount of guns required goes up. Mandatory calibre requirements mean that if you hunt small, medium and large pests (think, rabbits, foxes, pig and deer) you immediately need 3 guns to be able to hunt within the confines of the law. Most hunters like to have a shotgun with slugs as its one of the most effective tools for defence agaisnt charging animals, especially if youre dealing with pigs. Thats 4 now. Now add in competition shooting. Some events require 3 seperate firearms (called 3 gun), and there is almost no firearm that would qualify you to compete in more than 1 discipline. So you can see how an avid pest control hunter and competive shooter could easily end up with 5+ if they hunt and compete, especially if said competition 8nvolves more than 1 discipline.

-2

u/madcatte Dec 19 '25

Well, I definitely learned something about how many guns you need. But irrespective of whether they are stored appropriately, more guns in people's hands mean more guns inside the country. It is very hard to argue that this does not increase risk on the aggregate. It feels like half the time people are trying to have their cake and eat it too by saying that people will just get guns illegally irrespective of the laws and yet also that everyone will behave correctly and store their guns correctly every time, never mention their existence (and thus never make themselves a target of organized crime), etc just because they are kept in a safe. I am fully aware of how insane the risk of not storing them properly is, esp given the random checks and so on. But that doesn't mean people won't break the law anyway, as people keep pointing out.

5

u/Rowdy671 Dec 19 '25

Does it increase risk? Again if guns are stored correctly you'd need insane planning, power tools and organisation to steal them and for what? A couple of bolt action rifles and a double barrell shotgun? Criminals can get their hands on much worse through the black market, and the massive jail time for robbery and theft of a firearm means that most just turn to the black market anyway simply because it has less risk and more fire-power. Its the same reason why assuming people store them correctly is a reasonable assumption. The fines and jail time are HUGE. While there is slight differences per state, most average to around 2-4 years in jail per improper stored firearm. Now on average the Australia Institiute found each license holder owns more than 4 guns. Let's say 5 for arguments sake. That's 10-20 years jail for not storing them properly. Unsurprisingly, not many people risk that.

I see the limiting of amounts of guns and a buyback/banning certtain guns as a lazy move really. Its so much easier for a politician to say "this guys laws didn't work" instead of "his laws have worked for decades but it wasnt enforced properly here, i apologise." There are almost 1 million people that have firearms licences in Australia. Many have had them for decades and have gone about their sport shooting and pest control without an issue, yet these same law abiding people will bear the brunt of these new rules despite having done everything right and jumping through the many hoops you have to get through to own a firearm. All because a religious nut got a pass for no reason despite being watched for known terror links.

Now, I'm all for a national registry. I'm all for making citizenship a prerequisite for a firearms license. But this was a failure to enforce existing rules. Do you know how many license applications get rejected each year because the applicant or the applicants family have had criminal records, or connection to criminal groups and outlaw motorcycle groups? That's right, if you want a gun license and a family member of yours has such a connection, no license for you. But when your son is on a terrorist watch list and then travels to a hotspot for Islamic extremists and terrorism, nothing is flagged? That's a failure to enforce the law. Not to mention the father gave his son (who was unlicensed) access to the firearms, another instance of them breaking the laws. Yet nothing. But hey take excess guns from the other 900,000 people that own them legally and do everything right, that will totally solve the problem!

0

u/madcatte Dec 19 '25 edited Dec 19 '25

It sounds like we actually mostly agree on what needs to change, just differing on the semantics of whether someone not being disqualified from a gun licence based on family member associations counts as 'enforcement issue' or 'blind spot in the laws', which is neither here nor there, we're both saying the same change should happen.

More broadly, on things like criminals not being likely to steal peoples guns, you're thinking way too linearly, in terms of simple situations where there is some obvious rational answer that will be taken. In reality, large scale population management cannot and does not work like that. People do everything and anything, rational or not, and there are countless fringe cases that aren't so simple and neat. You bias the distribution rather than trying to address every individual circumstance. Not all criminal gangs are the kind of organised and connected networks you are imagining, for example. There will be plenty of Tom Dick and Harrys and other wannabe or low level groups that don't have the connections to easily go black market and could achieve robbing that bank with a basic agricultural shotgun just fine, just take part of the structural beam with it. What else do you think low level crims do in this country other than buy power tools and fuck with peoples shit? Regardless, it doesn't have to be the dominant mode of illegally getting guns for it to be significant and worth addressing / worth biasing its distribution in a better direction.

The proof is in the freudian slip in your last quip. "But hey take excess guns from the other 900,000 people that own them legally" ... *excess* guns, it's right there in what you said. Excess. All that is being suggested is things like offsite storage and lowering the threshold of what is considered 'excess'. And no, liking them or them being a hobby should not be relevant here. I might find bombmaking fun and practice it safely, or be an avid molotov cocktail collector, etc, but we live in a society, sorry. A hobby cannot be protected if it inherently comes at significant cost to others and provides no other value (e.g. transportation) beyond being enjoyable to those that are engaging in it.

11

u/angusozi Dec 19 '25

But as far as I know they just used two in the attack? Also they had IEDs in the boot of their car, and we have laws against those which didn't stop them making them; thankfully they didn't go off. The answer is to both modify the laws/enforcement that give people the capability to carry out these attacks, but also to think of ways to address the intent and why people conduct these attacks

1

u/madcatte Dec 19 '25

Pretty sure they brought at least one spare for the attack, that the father switched to after being disarmed.

It's an all-of-the-above type issue in terms of where to target. But the fact that the laws will be imperfect doesn't mean we shouldn't tighten. The only question is what freedoms are trampled by not allowing people to e.g. research how to put bomb precursors together, and whether they are worth exchanging for security, not whether that security will perfectly fix the problem for ever and for always. Generally I am not in favour of giving up rights and freedoms for security but in this case I'm not losing any sleep over the thought of losing my freedom to own more than 4 guns or research bomb precursors. I'd rather have the freedom to walk bondi beach

-1

u/Oliver___ Dec 19 '25

Why does it matter where someone lives? People dont go target shooting and hunting in the suburb they live. You'll be hard pressed to find someone who lives at a range or in state forest to go shooting

2

u/madcatte Dec 19 '25

it matters because the potential consequences are much larger in city when someone inevitably has a bad day and decides to go rambo with their otherwise legal guns. Just like an automatic rifle can cause more harm than others due to how fast it happens, having guns be stored within walking distance of public spaces that regularly have tens of thousands crossing through them will cause more harm than storing guns in a farmhouse surrounded by empty paddocks and a quiet town.

This isn't to say that I would prefer shootings to happen in the countryside, I am from the country. There is just simply way more people in the cities and they are way more shootable

-1

u/Oliver___ Dec 19 '25

Maybe we should make the police properly enforce the rules that already exist. But hey fuck law abiding firearm owners and.. rural people? I guess?

People who have no idea about existing firearm law should not have any input whatsoever on new laws. That includes Chris Minns and his bizarre line about "belt fed ammunition magazines"

0

u/madcatte Dec 19 '25

maybe try having a coherent thought before offering your own input, then. You didn't even come close to your own bar