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In the aftermath of the awful incident at Bondi, Australia is facing multiple critical reckonings. There is a long-overdue national focus on antisemitism, an persistent concern about national security, and questions about the way such an event could occur. However, from the perspective of a public health expert and Australian Jew, the paramount dialogue we are now having revolves around firearms.

A Decade of Warnings and a Successful Solution

Public health experts have been sounding alarms about guns for a minimum of a ten-year period. In the wake of the Port Arthur tragedy, Australians united and enacted a suite of reforms to reduce gun violence across the country. And it worked. Before 1996, the nation experienced roughly one mass shooting per year. In the decades since, there have been vanishingly few significant tragedies, with none reaching the death toll of the shootings in the 1980s and 1990s.

The Bondi Attack and the Role of Existing Regulations

Even during the Bondi tragedy, the nation's firearm regulations were not entirely useless. It has been suggested the individuals involved might have been armed with bolt-action rifles and at least one straight-pull shotgun. These weapons can only fire a single bullet at a time, necessitating a physical action to chamber the next round. Although these guns can be fired rapidly with lethal results, they remain significantly less rapid and less efficient than the high-capacity, semi-automatic rifles frequently used in overseas attacks. The casualty count at Bondi could have been much greater if more advanced weapons had been accessible.

Preventing another Bondi requires unity across all states. Regrettably, there are already fissures in the facade.

Legislation Under Strain

Yet, the terrible toll of the incident demonstrates that existing gun laws are failing. Designed in the late 1990s with the noblest aims, years have eroded their efficacy. Concerningly, there are now a greater number of guns in Australia than before the Port Arthur massacre, with some individuals in urban areas reportedly holding arsenals numbering in the hundreds.

The nation has grown overconfident and it has cost us terribly.

The Path Ahead: Announced Changes

Since the Bondi attack, there have been multiple declarations regarding strengthened gun laws. The state of NSW in particular will shortly enact a package of reforms to mitigate the collective risk from firearms. The federal government has announced a fresh gun buyback, and there is hope for a national firearms registry, despite the inherent challenges of aligning state and federal jurisdictions.

All of this are only possible if the nation works together. As stated, when it comes to gun control, the country is only as strong as its least stringent jurisdiction. This is the very nature of the Australian system – regulations in one state are easily circumvented if they can be bypassed with a short drive across a state line.

Countering Common Arguments

We hear the inevitable response that "firearms are not the killers, individuals are". This is accurate in the same sense that planes don't transport people, pilots do. Certainly, aircraft require operators, but it would be quite challenging for a captain to move 500 people internationally without the aircraft. The horrific violence witnessed at Bondi would be extremely difficult without guns, and would have been significantly less lethal if the accused individuals had not had access to the firearms they used.

Balancing Need and Security

There are legitimate needs for some Australians to possess guns. Farm work or controlling vermin in many places is incredibly hard without them. A total ban of firearms from the country is impractical, as in certain contexts they are essential tools.

What we can do – the imperative action – is to ensure that gun laws 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 no longer as safe as it previously was. It is critical to take the lessons of Bondi to heart, and make certain that future generations are equally safe as previous generations have been.

A commentator remarked after the Bondi attack, "such tragedies just don't happen here". This is true, but solely due to the fact that the country has made concerted efforts to keep itself safe. As nightmarish as the incident was, there is an aspiration that it can serve as the final tragedy the nation ever sees.