The Bondi mass shooting shows Australia’s gun laws aren’t under control

But the Bondi incident was even more newsworthy for another reason; It was shocking in a way that a shooting in the United States could never be.

Despite warnings from Jewish leaders and security forces that such an attack was possible – a corollary to what author Simon Sebag Montefiore has called “the end of the antisemitism taboo” – most Australians would never have expected it.

Such incidents should not happen in Australia.

This simply shouldn’t happen on Australia’s most iconic beach, where the local way of life is the embodiment of the national characteristics that John Howard once expressed as his wish for Australia.

He said he wanted us to be safe, comfortable and comfortable.

Howard, of course, was the great leader who banned gun ownership when the unthinkable happened in Port Arthur in 1996 and Martin Bryant murdered 35 people in cold blood.

The then Prime Minister launched a national campaign to drastically reduce the number of firearms in the country, particularly semi-automatic assault rifles.

He achieved this in the face of great pressure within the party, as well as pressure and even threats from some gun enthusiasts.

But it solved the problem; At least that has been our national narrative ever since.

There are no mass shootings like in the USA.

We don’t have a problem with gun violence.

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But Sunday’s massacre shows that we can no longer rest on these successes.

Malice will always seek to take advantage of regulation, whether it comes in the form of antisemitism, organized criminal violence, or coercive control in a domestic context.

In 2018, John Edwards shot and killed his two children, Jack and Jennifer Edwards, at the West Pennant Hills home they shared with his terrified, estranged wife, their mother Olga Edwards.

Edwards had a history of domestic violence dating back decades; The police database showed 15 recorded crimes.

One of the primary goals of the investigation was to uncover how Edwards was able to obtain a firearms permit.given this history.

Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan concluded the “wholly inadequate” NSW Firearms Registry had failed in its primary responsibility when granting the man a gun licence.

For those of us who pursued the investigation, and for many who worked on it, it was deeply shocking to learn how lax the systems were.

We thought we were kept safe by an orderly gun control process.

We were wrong.

There was not enough information sharing between the police and the registry office.

Computer systems were unable to flag the risk when new information was entered.

And individual gun clubs did not routinely share information about suspicious individuals like Edwards.

The NSW Firearms Registry has since undergone a “comprehensive restructuring” taking into account the recommendations of the Edwards inquiry, according to reports.

The circumstances of the Bondi massacre are completely different from this tragedy.

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NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said on Sunday that “authorities have very little information about any of these men”.

However, reports have emerged that alleged assassin Naveed Akram, 24, was known to ASIO for his association with ISIS cell members.

His father and accomplice, Sajid Akram, had been a licensed gun owner for a decade, was a member of a gun club and owned six guns, including the high-powered firearms used in Sunday’s attack.

Thanks to John Howard, these were not automatic weapons.

But they were strong enough.

And so, just as with Edwards, a question arises: How were these guys able to legally acquire huge, high-powered weapons?

Why would any suburban fruit shop owner need six lethal weapons?

It is too late for the victims of Sunday’s massacre.

And it feels like it’s too late for the United States to do anything about the gun violence crisis; It’s a barbaric cultural sign that Australians find mysterious, especially since America lacks a collective political will to address this problem.

Australians are different.

But we must use this moment to double down on our exceptionalism.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said he will propose strengthening Australia’s gun laws and that the NSW parliament could meet before Christmas to introduce emergency legislation to that effect.

We now have motivation and reason to tighten gun control and stop the backsliding that seems to have occurred since Howard’s life-saving work in the 1990s.