Anytime there's a mass murder involving a firearm anywhere, someone in the government of that nation immediately turns to gun control as a solution. Outside of the United States, they're often successful.
And Australia is no different. Following the Port Arthur massacre, they invoked a bunch of very strict anti-gun measures, all made possible because they had no version of the Second Amendment.
Following the shooting at Bondi Beach, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wasted no time calling for still more gun control.
What's surprising, though, is that he's facing some pushback.
Anthony Albanese’s move to toughen gun laws following Sunday’s massacre at Bondi has failed to stem a growing backlash, with former prime minister John Howard labelling it a distraction from failed leadership, and one state premier saying it was no substitute for combating antisemitism.
As the grief from Sunday’s murder of innocent people turned to anger, Howard, who introduced Australia’s world-famous 1996 gun laws after the Port Arthur shooting, said Albanese was desperately “backfilling” after failing to show leadership on antisemitism.
“I don’t want them to become a diversion, an excuse, and that’s the fear I have that, you know, ‘We’re going to tighten these laws, make them even better,’” he said of Albanese’s gun law push.
“Well, I tell you it would be a good idea to tighten your language in stopping the spread of antisemitism.”
Queensland LNP Premier David Crisafulli said while he backed gun law reform, making it the focus of the government response would be gifting victory to the terrorists.
“It can’t be the panacea for fixing antisemitism,” he said. “If we rely on gun reforms as the only thing we do in response to this, then the terrorists have a win. If that is the only part of the conversation, evil triumphs over good.”
It's not just politicos down under who are calling Albanese to task on this, either.
One of those wounded in the shooting, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, also took issue with the call for gun control in the wake of raging antisemitism in the country.
Government authorities have not done enough to stamp out hatred of Jews in Australia, which has allowed it to fester in the aftermath of October 7, says the daughter of a Holocaust survivor who was wounded during the Bondi terror attack.
Victoria Teplitsky, 53, a retired childcare centre owner, says the father and son terrorists who went on a 10-minute shooting spree that killed 15 people had been “taught to hate,” which was a bigger factor in the attack than access to guns.
“It’s not the fact that those two people had a gun. It’s the fact that hatred has been allowed to fester against the Jewish minority in Australia,” she tells Reuters in an interview.
That...sounds almost American.
It wasn't the tools, but the tools using them.
Albanese famously "recognized" Palestinian statehood during the war between Israel and Hamas, which some figured was a rubber stamp on approval for acts of antisemitism. While it's unlikely that two men, a father and son, with ties to ISIS, really cared all that much about whether Australia fed into the delusion that there's a Palestinian state, at least not enough to play a factor in their attack, the truth is that it sure didn't hurt.
After all, it seems pretty damn clear that Albanese was fine with Hamas slaughtering Jews on October 7th, so why not slaughter them in Sydney?
Either way, it's good to see Albanese get at least some pushback over his call for more gun control, because the laws are already ridiculous there.
By a quirk of fate, the Unsubscribe Podcast had Australian comedian Isaac Butterfield on for their latest episode, and the topic turned to gun ownership down there. Butterfield went into many of the laws that exist down there involving firearms, including how you can't own a rifle unless you're either a member of a range or you have a farm or something. While he's a comedian, not a lawyer, he's at least aware of the overall rules.
And this was filmed well before the attack at Bondi Beach, by the way. It aired on Pepperbox the day before the shooting. That's why I called it a "quirk of fate."
So yeah, the laws are so extensive now that most Australians who might want a firearm simply can't get one. At least, they can't in such a way that gives them ready access to one.
But guns are Albanese's scapegoat. Just like with American politicians, blaming guns is an easy way to shift responsibility. It's an easy way to pretend you had nothing to do with what happened, but also to look like you're doing something about it when you're really not.
And at least some Aussies are seeing through that for a change, including at least one who has no problem with gun control.
Editor’s Note: The radical left here will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights so that we're as defenseless as Australians.
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