A month after the fatal shooting at Bondi Beach, Australia’s lower house of parliament voted in favor of a nationwide gun buyback program and stricter checks on handgun license applications. According to Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, the gunmen would not have been able to lawfully get firearms if such legislation had been in place before the attack on a Jewish holiday.
Burke told parliament that the people who killed fifteen people on December 14 had “hate in their hearts and guns in their hands. While his son had been on the radar of intelligence services, the father of the father-son team suspected of carrying out the Bondi attack lawfully possessed six weapons.
By a vote of 96 to 45, the House of Representatives approved the bill. It will now go to the Senate for review, and with the Greens’ support, it is anticipated to pass. Reforms pertaining to hate speech are also being discussed in Parliament.
Burke went on to say that it “comes as a shock to most Australians” to learn that the nation possesses more firearms than it did before to the Port Arthur attack in 1996, which claimed 35 lives in Tasmania.
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