How Bondi Beach shooting may lead to another reckoning in Australia over guns

On Sunday (December 14), Australia witnessed its worst mass shooting since the Port Arthur tragedy when two armed gunmen opened fire in the crowded Bondi Beach, resulting in at least 15 deaths and 41 injuries. The attack, which has seemingly shaken Australia’s confidence in its gun control success story, may once again force the country to grapple with its gun laws.

Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said, in a statement, the country’s leaders had agreed “that strong, decisive and focused action was needed on gun law reform as an immediate action”.

Before and after Port Arthur tragedy

Since Britain set up its colony in Australia, firearms have been a quintessential part of Australian culture. The colonial experience shaped this culture: like the US, Australia too has vast, sparsely-populated interiors, a history of conflict between European settlers and native populations, and plenty of feral pests to shoot.

By the 1980s, however, incidences of gun violence had led to a nascent push toward gun control. After peaking in 1989, there was a gradual decline in private ownership of firearms, with restrictions introduced at the provincial level. Nonetheless, gun control remained deeply unpopular among a majority of Australians, who considered the right to own guns an essential extension of their freedom.

Things fundamentally changed after the Port Arthur massacre. Four days after the shooting, then Prime Minister John Howard promised to “significantly strengthen laws relating to gun control in Australia”.

This was deemed as an act of immense political courage, given how many members of his party were opposed to any such reform. But the public was now with Howard, even as he proposed what was considered to be radical reforms.

Twelve days after the massacre, the Howard government announced the National Firearms Agreement (NFA), a suite of measures from the federal, state, and territory governments designed to strengthen Australia’s gun control laws. The NFA included:

• A ban on some categories of firearms, including semiautomatic assault rifles;
• A temporary firearms buyback program for the newly banned weapons;
• The creation of a national firearm register (NFR);
• A 28-day waiting period for firearm purchases; and
• Tightened licensing rules, including a ban on licences for those under 18.

These measures were — and remain — popular among the gun-loving Australian public. That there were no major mass shootings for two decades after the Port Arthur massacre worked in these laws’ favour. However, a closer look at these laws’ implementation points to persisting problems in Australia’s gun control framework.

Promises unfulfilled and a worrying trend

Despite the reforms of 1996 enjoying public and political support, many elements of the NFA are yet to be fully implemented.

The promised national gun register, for instance, is still not a reality. In December 2023, the Australian cabinet agreed to implement an NFR in four years; in April 2024, the federal government committed more than $160 million to implement the register. But progress has been slow.

Other rules, such as those governing firearm use among minors, have been implemented inconsistently across Australia’s states and territories, hampering their effectiveness. As Australian Federal Police Association president Alex Caruana said in 2024, “[if] you’ve got softer laws in one state, that weakens the laws in the other states”.

“Nearly thirty years later, Australia’s firearm laws are not living up to the promise of the Howard Government’s bravery,” stated Canberra-based think tank The Australia Institute’s report ‘Australian gun control: 29 years after Port Arthur’ published earlier this year.

Data compiled by The Australia Institute shows that the number of registered privately owned firearms in Australia breached the 4 million mark in 2024 for the first time ever, and that there is at least one licensed firearm for every seven Australians. “There are now more guns in Australia than before the introduction of the NFA,” the report states.

(All this said, current Australian gun laws, while not perfect, have been effective. The Bondi Beach massacre, for instance, could have been even more deadly if the perpetrators were using AR-15-style assault rifles with far higher rates of fire instead of bolt-action rifles.)

Another shooting, more promises

The Bondi Beach attack comes at a time when there has been growing concern among Australian gun control advocates that the country has grown about firearms regulation, and that the so-called “gold standard” framework is falling short of its promise.

After a Monday meeting of the national cabinet, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the leaders had commissioned police ministers and attorneys-general to develop options for extensive measures. Some proposals include:

• Accelerating work on making the NFR;
• Allowing for additional use of criminal intelligence to underpin firearms licensing that can be used in administrative licensing regimes;
• Limiting the number of firearms to be held by any one individual (the Bondi beach shooters was a registered gun owner, and held six legally obtained firearms);
• Stopping issue of licenses in perpetuity and introducing a framework in which they will have to be periodically renewed;
• Limiting open-ended firearms licensing and the types of guns that are legal, including modifications — one of the immediate priorities is to introduce laws on custom guns, including 3D-printed ones, which at the moment, operate in a legal grey zone; and
• Introducing Australian citizenship as a mandatory condition to obtain a firearm license.

Albanese said that the 1996 NFA will be “renegotiated” to “ensure it remains as robust as possible in today’s changing security environment”.