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Following the tragedy of the awful attack at Bondi, Australia is confronting several critical reckonings. We are seeing a long-overdue national focus on anti-Jewish sentiment, an ongoing worry about public safety, and questions about how such an event could occur. But, as viewed of a public health expert and Jewish Australian, the paramount discussion we are finally having centers on firearms.

A Decade of Warnings and a Successful Solution

Health experts have been sounding alarms about firearms for a minimum of a ten-year period. In the wake of the Port Arthur massacre, Australians came together and implemented a series of reforms to curb gun violence nationwide. The strategy succeeded. Before 1996, the nation experienced roughly one large-scale firearm incident per year. In the decades since, there have been vanishingly few significant tragedies, with none approaching the death toll of the incidents in the 1980s and 1990s.

The Bondi Tragedy and the Function of Current Laws

Amidst the Bondi tragedy, the nation's gun laws were not entirely useless. It has been suggested the alleged attackers might have been armed with bolt-action rifles and at least one straight-pull shotgun. These firearms can only fire a single bullet at a time, requiring a manual operation to chamber the subsequent shot. While these guns are capable of being discharged quite quickly with lethal results, they remain significantly less rapid and less efficient than the high-capacity, self-loading rifles commonplace in overseas mass shootings. The number of deaths at Bondi would've been far higher if different weapons had been available.

Preventing another Bondi requires national cohesion. And unfortunately, we have already seen fissures in the united front.

Legislation Under Strain

However, the terrible consequences of the incident demonstrates that current gun laws are inadequate. Crafted in the late 1990s with the best of intentions, years have worn away their effectiveness. Concerningly, there are now a greater number of guns in Australia than prior to the Port Arthur massacre, with some citizens in urban areas reportedly holding collections numbering in the hundreds.

We have been overconfident and it has exacted a terrible price.

The Road Forward: Proposed Reforms

Since the Bondi attack, there have been numerous declarations regarding new firearm legislation. New South Wales in particular will soon introduce a suite of measures to reduce the public danger from firearms. The federal government has announced a fresh firearm surrender scheme, and there is potential for a national firearms registry, notwithstanding the complexities of aligning state and federal jurisdictions.

All of this are only possible provided that the nation acts in unison. As stated, when it comes to firearm laws, the country is dependent on its least stringent jurisdiction. This is the reality of the Australian system – laws in one state are much less meaningful if they can be bypassed with a short drive across a border.

Addressing Common Objections

There is the inevitable response that "guns don't kill people, individuals are". This is accurate in the identical way that planes don't transport people, aviators do. Certainly, planes can't fly themselves, but it would be virtually impossible for a pilot to transport 500 people overseas without the aircraft. The mass slaughter seen at Bondi would be all but impossible without guns, and would have been far less damaging if the alleged terrorists had not had access to the weapons they used.

Weighing Necessity and Security

It is acknowledged there are legitimate reasons for some Australians to possess firearms. Farm work or culling pests in rural areas is extremely difficult without them. A complete removal of guns from the country is impractical, as in certain contexts they are indispensable.

The achievable goal – what we must do – is to ensure that firearm legislation are modernized to better match the world we live in today. Australia's laws have historically been the envy of the world, but time and distance has done its work and the nation is less secure as it previously was. It is critical to learn from the tragedy of Bondi seriously, and ensure that coming Australians are as protected as past generations have been.

As one commentator remarked after the Bondi events, "such tragedies just don't happen here". This is true, but only because the country has collectively worked to keep itself safe. As nightmarish as the attack was, there is hope that it can become the final tragedy the nation ever sees.