The Bondi Beach terror attack has raised immediate questions about whether New South Wales’s gun licensing regime contains dangerous gaps, after authorities confirmed one of the shooters had legally held a firearms licence for about a decade and owned six registered weapons.
Fifteen people, including a child, were killed during the Hanukkah gathering, and 40 more were injured on Dec. 14 after the father-son duo opened fire.
Premier Chris Minns acknowledged the seriousness of the failure and said the government is already examining whether the law needs to change.
“I won’t hesitate to move legislation if it’s required,” he said, describing the inquiry as only in its early stages, adding it must be comprehensive.
“New South Wales (NSW) Police need to provide all the details of this inquiry to the government. But I made it clear last night that we will take every step we possibly can to keep our community safe and we'll be looking at law reform along that route.”
Minns declined to directly answer whether the system had failed by allowing a future terrorist to legally own guns for years.
Instead, he said there was a need for a full forensic review.
“This is a massive terrorist event in Australia’s largest city targeted on Jewish Australians. We need to get to the bottom of exactly how this happened so that we can take steps to ensure that it doesn’t happen again,” he said.
