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Following the tragedy of the awful attack at Bondi, Australia is facing multiple critical conversations. We are seeing a long-overdue national focus on anti-Jewish sentiment, an persistent worry about national security, and questions about the way such an event could occur. However, from the perspective of a public health expert and Jewish Australian, the paramount dialogue we are finally having centers on firearms.

A Decade of Warnings and a Successful Response

Health specialists have been sounding alarms about firearms for at least a ten-year period. In the wake of the Port Arthur tragedy, Australians came together and enacted a series of reforms to reduce gun violence across the country. And it worked. Before 1996, the nation witnessed roughly one mass shooting per year. Over the following years, there have been vanishingly few significant tragedies, with none reaching the fatalities of the shootings in the 1980s and 1990s.

The Bondi Tragedy and the Function of Existing Laws

Amidst the Bondi tragedy, the nation's firearm regulations were not entirely useless. Reports indicate the individuals involved might have been armed with manually-operated long guns 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. Although these guns can be fired quite quickly with devastating effect, they remain significantly less rapid and more cumbersome than the high-capacity, semi-automatic rifles commonplace in overseas mass shootings. The casualty count at Bondi could have been much greater if more advanced weapons had been available.

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

A System Showing Weakness

Yet, the horrific toll of the attack demonstrates that existing firearm regulations are failing. Crafted in the late 1990s with the best of intentions, decades have eroded their effectiveness. Concerningly, there are now a greater number of guns in Australia than prior to the Port Arthur massacre, with some individuals in cities owning collections of hundreds of weapons.

We have been overconfident and it has cost us terribly.

The Path Ahead: Announced Reforms

In the time after the Bondi attack, there have been multiple announcements regarding new firearm legislation. The state of NSW specifically will soon enact a package of reforms to reduce the public danger posed by firearms. The national government has announced a new firearm surrender scheme, and there is hope for a national firearms registry, notwithstanding the complexities of coordinating state and federal jurisdictions.

These measures are only possible provided that the nation acts in unison. As stated, when it comes to gun control, the country is dependent on its weakest link. 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 Objections

There is the predictable argument that "firearms are not the killers, individuals are". This is accurate in the identical way that aircraft do not fly passengers, pilots do. Yes, aircraft require operators, but it would be quite challenging for a pilot to transport 500 people internationally without the plane. The mass slaughter witnessed at Bondi would be extremely difficult without guns, and would have been far less damaging if the alleged terrorists had been denied access to the weapons they possessed.

Weighing Necessity and Security

It is acknowledged there are valid needs for some Australians to own guns. Managing livestock or culling pests in rural areas is extremely difficult without them. A complete removal of guns from the country is not feasible, as in some cases they are essential tools.

What we can do – the imperative action – is to ensure that gun laws are updated to accurately reflect the society we live in today. Australia's laws have long been the envy of the world, but the passage of years has taken a toll and the nation is no longer as safe as it previously was. It is vital to take the lessons of Bondi seriously, and make certain that future generations are equally safe as past generations have been.

As one friend remarked after the Bondi events, "things like this just don't happen here". They don't, but only because the country has collectively worked to keep itself safe. As nightmarish as the incident was, there is an aspiration that it can become the last one the nation experiences.