Bondi tragedy. Let’s not forget guns in the political blamefest

The revelation that the Bondi attacker bought three shotguns from the same NSW gun store in one day will likely bring the focus back to guns. Michael Pascoe reports.

Ahmed al Ahmed is a hero who risks his life by jumping over Sajid Akram, temporarily disarming him and thus slowing the lethal fire and saving lives. What about those who accelerated the incident and ensured that more people were killed? What kind of assholes do this?

My gun license expired earlier this year. I sold my double barrel shotgun to a gun shop in Sydney. My membership in the clay target club expired a long time ago. I wasn’t using it.

I say this to give a little context to the shock I felt when I read that old Akram had guns legally. Given the rate of shotgun fire, I thought it was a pump-action gun, a weapon that should be strictly controlled, should be limited to the relatively small number of people who could justify the need for a rapid-fire weapon for pest control, should not be in the hands of suburban gun club members.

This showed just how out of date my knowledge of Australian firearms regulation and technology was, how lobbyists, importers and retailers were manipulating weak politicians to their will to undermine Australia’s Port Arthur gun control laws and make termites.

gun lobby

I didn’t know that slimy profit seekers and influential hitmen managed to deliver weapons as deadly and unnecessary as shotguns to our country, to our gun shops, into the hands of anyone who wanted them, into the hands of Sajid Akram.

Our governments, all governments of both parties, have done this.

Especially forgive the National or Bob Katter for daring to criticize anyone else for Bondi.

thanks to ABC’s Matt Bevan, I know better now. Akram had straight-pull shotguns that passed politicians and regulators from about 2018 onwards.

There’s blood on your hands

If you want to see a straight pull gun in action up close, try this YouTube review of an Adler shotgun 5 minutes 43 inches. The reviewer makes six rounds in a few seconds.

One AFR account It is stated that in the Bondi massacre, 33 shots were fired in the first minute and 50 shots were fired in the first two minutes.

In my opinion, the politicians who allow such fast-firing weapons to fall into the hands of the Ekrems in the country and those who put pressure on them have blood on their hands.

It is a bitter time for those who fought unsuccessfully against politicians, for those who saw the danger but could not cope with all the deceptions offered by the local gun lobby, for those who had to wait until 15 people were killed and dozens injured to see governments act too late.

By trying to diminish the importance of closing the door, our weak and helpless Federal opposition is revealing its own priorities.

There were warnings ignored

Samantha Lee, former director of Gun Control Australia, wrote in the Nine newspaper that in 2016 she tried to warn the federal and NSW governments about a new breed of lever-action shotgun, the Adler A110. We don’t allow AR15 style semi-automatic rifles, but the lever action comes close.

“The gun lobby in Australia still exists, although it is not as structured as the National Rifle Association in the US,” Ms Lee said. wrote.

“He walks the corridors of our parliaments.

Its members include arms exporters, importers and some political parties.

“The gradual erosion of our gun laws is like the slow boiling of a crab in water. This happened gradually, behind closed doors and with little public attention, until Sunday’s massacre.”

There’s plenty of blame to go around about the extent of the Bondi tragedy. This kind of lone wolf madness, whether in Port Arthur, Christchurch mosques, Bondi or other examples further afield, cannot be completely prevented, but the damage can be reduced.

machine fantasy

As I have written elsewhere before, there is something in the nature of the machine that can play out our fantasies. Desire and buy a car designed to be driven fast; Eventually you will start driving it fast.

Desire and buy a machine specifically designed to kill many people quickly and in the end… it depends on what fantasy you harbor and how well you control it. But when the nature of such a machine is combined with the madness of a mass murderer, many more people are killed.

Watch out for politicians who are belatedly making it harder to buy a straight-shooting shotgun like Akram’s. Where were they when their control of Port Arthur was being undermined?

But look more carefully at the players who are now deemphasizing fixing the mistake of the past. They have no credibility, they don’t deserve respect.

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