A government commission investigating the December attack on Jews celebrating Hannukah at Bondi Beach recommended additional gun control measures Thursday.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced plans on Dec. 19 for a mass confiscation of firearms from law-abiding gun owners in response to the mass shooting at Bondi Beach that was inspired by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The 154-page report issued by the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion urged the passage of new gun laws, including a so-called “buyback” similar to the one imposed after the 1996 mass shooting at Port Arthur, while not recommending any “urgent changes” to address antisemitism, The Associated Press reported.
“I can assure the Australian public that the Government will do everything necessary to protect the community,” Albanese said in a Thursday press conference. “In the wake of the Bondi attack, my government took immediate action to bolster the resources of our security agencies, tackle antisemitism, crack down on hate preachers and deliver tougher gun laws.”
In his Dec. 19 announcement of new proposed gun measures, Albanese explicitly targeted gun owners.
“We know that one of the terrorists from the weekend’s attack held a firearm license and had six guns,” Albanese said in the release, in which he pushed for a cap on how many firearms an individual could own. “There is no reason someone living in the suburbs of Sydney needed this many guns.”
“There are now more than 4 million firearms in Australia – more than at the time of the Port Arthur massacre, nearly 30 years ago,” Albanese continued.
Australia passed legislation that required owners of semi-automatic firearms and certain pump-action firearms to surrender them in a mandatory “buyback” following a 1996 mass shooting in Port Arthur, Tasmania, that killed 35 people and wounded 23 others. Albanese praised the legislation and cited it during a Tuesday statement commemorating the Port Arthur shooting.
“We think of Walter Mikac who [channeled] his devastating loss into a call for national action on gun reform, writing to Prime Minister Howard with a message that echoes through the decades: ‘Be strong, act now,’” Albanese said. “Australia is a better place because the Government and the Parliament of the day came together to answer Walter’s call.”
Canada may turn to retired police officers to carry out a door-to-door confiscation of firearms, a senior official told a member of Parliament during a March hearing on the progress made toward implementing onerous gun laws passed in 2022 under then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The Australian embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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