Australia announces gun buyback plans less than a week after Bondi Beach shooting

Sydney — Australia will use a sweeping buyback plan to “get guns off our streets,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Friday, showing his government was willing to take quick action less than a week after a terrorist attack left 15 people dead at a Jewish holiday gathering on Sydney’s famous Bondi Beach.

Sajid Akram and his son Naveed are accused of opening fire on the festival, which was organized to mark the first day of Hanukkah on Sunday, in what was one of Australia’s deadliest mass shootings.

A few hours after the attack, Albanese He promised to toughen the nation’s gun laws. That allowed Sajid, 50, to own six high-powered rifles.

“There’s no reason anyone living in suburban Sydney would need that many guns,” he said.

Australia would pay gun owners to hand over “surplus, recently banned and illegal firearms.”

Albanese said Monday that his government was “prepared to take whatever action is necessary. Among them is the need for stricter gun laws.” He specifically suggested measures that could limit the number of guns a licensed owner can obtain and require a review process for existing licenses.

The prime minister said the federal government would split the cost of the buyback program equally with Australia’s state and territory administrations, with more details to be worked out when lawmakers return to work next week.

Investigation continues as Sydney remains on high alert

Sajid Akram, 50, was killed in a shootout with police, but his son Naveed, 24, survived. The unemployed bricklayer was charged earlier this week with 15 counts of murder, an act of terrorism and dozens of other serious offenses after waking up from a coma in a Sydney hospital.

Albanese said the attack was inspired by ISIS ideology, and Australian police are still investigating whether the pair may have met with Islamist extremists during a visit to the philippines just a couple of weeks before filming.

They spent most of November in the south of the Asian nation, in a hotel in Davao City. A hotel employee told News themezone on Thursday that the father and son extended their stay week after week and paid in cash, leaving during the day but returning to the hotel each night, often bringing food to eat in their room.

He said staff did not notice anything particularly suspicious about the men during their nearly month-long stay.

Meanwhile, Sydney remains on high alert almost a week after the shootings.

Armed police released seven men on Friday, a day after arresting them on a tip they received. may have been planning a “violent act”, while they were reportedly heading to Bondi Beach.

Police said there was no established link to the suspected Bondi gunmen and there was “no immediate risk to the safety of the community”.

Second major gun buyback in Australia spurred by mass shooting

The new buyback, assuming it is approved by lawmakers next week, will be the largest government-funded program since 1996, when then-Prime Minister John Howard cracked down on guns following another mass shooting, which left 35 people dead in the city of Port Arthur.

Just 12 days after that attack, Australian lawmakers passed legislation banning the sale and import of all automatic and semi-automatic rifles and shotguns; force people to present a legitimate reason and wait 28 days to purchase any firearm, and initiate massive, mandatory buybacks of banned weapons.

The government confiscated and destroyed nearly 700,000 firearms after the law was adopted, cutting the number of gun-owning households in half.

“It is indisputable that gun-related homicides have decreased significantly in Australia,” said former Prime Minister Howard, who defied many in his own Conservative party by introducing the 1996 law. told Seth Doane of News themezone two decades later, in 2016.

In the 15 years before those laws were passed, there were 13 mass shootings in Australia. In the following two decades, there was not a single one. Overall gun homicides decreased nearly 60% in the same period.

Asked to respond to critics who said the drop in gun deaths wasn’t necessarily due to the legislation, Howard told News themezone: “The number of deaths from mass shootings, gun-related homicides has gone down, gun-related suicides have gone down… Isn’t that evidence? Or are we expected to believe that all of that was going to magically happen? Come on!”

However, a study published earlier this year found that Australia still has some way to go to fully implement the 2016 legislation, called the National Firearms Agreement. The paper, produced by the Australia Institute think tank, said some of the measures had not yet come into force 29 years later, and others were being applied inconsistently in different states.

The law “was ambitious, politically courageous, and necessary for public safety,” the report concluded, praising Howard’s willingness to challenge his fellow lawmakers.

But “Australia still allows minors to have firearms licences, still lacks a National Firearms Registry and still has inconsistent laws that make enforcement difficult,” the group said, adding that overall gun ownership across the country had actually increased over the past three decades.

“There are now more than four million privately owned registered guns in Australia – 800,000 more than before the (1996) buyback,” the institute said in its May report. “Australians need gun laws that live up to the Howard government’s bravery, and right now Australia doesn’t have them.”

Albanese, along with state and territory leaders, agreed on Monday to look at ways to strengthen gun laws, including accelerating the rollout of the national firearms registry required in the 1996 legislation, making gun licenses available only to Australian citizens and imposing new restrictions on the types of guns that are legal to license.

A monument in the sea and a day of reflection planned for the victims of Bondi Beach

Hundreds of people took to the ocean at Bondi Beach on Friday to honor the 15 people who died in the terror attack, forming a huge ring in the sea on surfboards and paddleboards, as Albanese announced a national day of reflection to be held on Sunday.

Albanese urged Australians to light candles at 6.47pm on Sunday, “exactly one week since the attack unfolded”.

On Friday, swimmers and surfers paddled in a circle, bobbing in the gentle morning swell, splashing in the water and roaring with excitement.

“They killed innocent victims and today I am swimming there and being part of my community again to bring back the light,” security adviser Jason Carr, 53, told News. “We’re still burying bodies. But I felt it was important.”

Carole Schlessinger, 58, chief executive of a children’s charity, said there was a “beautiful energy” at the ocean meeting. “Being together is a very important way to try to cope with what’s going on.”

“It was really lovely to be a part of it,” she said, adding: “I personally feel very numb. I feel very angry. I feel furious.”