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Following the tragedy of the horrific incident at Bondi, Australia is facing several critical conversations. There is a much-needed national focus on anti-Jewish sentiment, an persistent concern about public safety, and inquiries about the way such an tragedy could occur. However, from the perspective of a health professional and Jewish Australian, the most important dialogue we are now having centers on firearms.

A Decade of Warnings and a Successful Response

Health specialists have been issuing warnings about firearms for a minimum of a ten-year period. In the wake of the Port Arthur tragedy, Australians came together and implemented a suite of reforms to curb gun violence across the country. And it worked. Prior to 1996, the nation witnessed approximately one mass shooting per year. In the decades since, there have been extremely rare major events, with none approaching the death toll of the incidents in the 1980s and 1990s.

This Recent Tragedy and the Role of Existing Regulations

Even during the Bondi tragedy, the nation's gun laws were not entirely useless. Reports indicate the alleged attackers possessed with manually-operated long guns and at least one straight-pull shotgun. These weapons are limited to firing a one round at a time, necessitating a physical action to ready the next round. Although these guns are capable of being discharged quite quickly with devastating effect, they remain far slower and less efficient than the high-capacity, semi-automatic rifles commonplace in overseas mass shootings. The number of deaths at Bondi could have been much greater if different weapons had been accessible.

Stopping another Bondi demands national cohesion. And unfortunately, there are already cracks in the united front.

Legislation Under Strain

Yet, the terrible consequences of the incident reveals that current gun laws are inadequate. Crafted in the late 1990s with the noblest aims, years have eroded their effectiveness. Alarmingly, there are now a greater number of guns in Australia than prior to the Port Arthur massacre, with some citizens in urban areas owning arsenals numbering in the hundreds.

We have been overconfident and it has exacted a terrible price.

The Road Forward: Proposed Reforms

In the time after the Bondi tragedy, there have been numerous declarations regarding new firearm legislation. New South Wales specifically will shortly introduce a suite of measures to reduce the collective risk from firearms. The federal government has announced a fresh gun buyback, and there is hope for a countrywide gun database, despite the complexities of aligning state and federal jurisdictions.

All of this are feasible if the nation works together. As noted, when it comes to gun control, the country is dependent on its weakest link. This is the very nature of the Australian system – laws in one state are much less meaningful if they can be avoided with a journey across a border.

Countering Common Objections

There is the inevitable response that "firearms are not the killers, individuals are". This is true in the identical way that planes don't transport people, pilots do. Certainly, aircraft require operators, but it would be virtually impossible for a pilot to move 500 people overseas without the aircraft. The mass slaughter seen at Bondi would be all but impossible without firearms, and would have been far less damaging if the accused individuals had not had access to the firearms they used.

Weighing Necessity and Safety

It is acknowledged there are legitimate needs for some Australians to possess guns. Farm work or culling pests in many places is incredibly hard without them. A total ban of guns from the country is not feasible, as in some cases they are indispensable.

What we can do – the imperative action – is to ensure that gun laws are modernized to better match the society we live in today. Australia's laws have long been the admiration of the world, but the passage of years has taken a toll and the nation is no longer as safe as it once was. It is critical to learn from the tragedy of Bondi to heart, and make certain that future generations are as protected 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 made concerted efforts to maintain its security. As nightmarish as the incident was, there is an aspiration that it can become the final tragedy the nation experiences.