Australia announces plans to buy guns less than a week after Bondi Beach shooting

in Sydney – Australia will use a massive bailout program to “take guns off our streets,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Friday, signaling his government is ready to take swift action within a week. terrorist attack Fifteen people died at a Jewish holiday gathering at Sydney’s famous Bondi Beach.

Sajid Akram and his son Naveed are accused of opening fire at the event, which was planned to celebrate the first day of Hanukkah on Sunday, in one of the most recent mass shootings in Australia.

After a few hours the attack, Albanese he vowed to strengthen national gun laws that allowed 50-year-old Sajid to have six powerful guns.

“There is no reason for someone living in the suburbs of Sydney to need so many guns,” he said.

Australia will pay gun owners to hand in “large amounts of cash, newly banned and illegal firearms.”

Albanese said Monday that his government is “ready to take whatever steps are necessary. Included in that is the need for stricter gun laws.” He specifically proposed measures that would limit the number of firearms a licensed owner can obtain, and authorize a review process for existing licenses.

The prime minister said the federal government would split the cost of the repatriation program equally with Australia’s state and territory governments, with more details to be used when lawmakers return to work next week.

The investigation is ongoing as Sydney remains on alert

Sajid Akram, 50, was killed in a shootout with the police, but his 24-year-old son, Naveed, survived. An unemployed builder has been charged with 15 counts of murder, terrorism and a host of other serious charges after waking up in a Sydney hospital.

Albanese said the attack was inspired by ISIS, and Australian police are still investigating whether the pair may have met with Islamist militants during the meeting. visit the Philippines a few weeks before the shooting.

They spent most of November in the south Asian nation, at a hotel in Davao City. A hotel employee told CBS News on Thursday that the father and son would book their stay from week to week and pay in cash, and that they would go out during the day but return to the hotel every night, often bringing back food to eat in their room.

He said the staff did not see anything suspicious about the men during their stay for almost a month.

Sydney, on the other hand, remains vigilant for nearly a week after the shooting.

Armed police released seven men from custody on Friday, a day after a tip-off he may have been planning an “act of violence,” as it was said to be heading to Bondi Beach.

Police said there was no confirmed link with the suspected Bondi gunmen and “there is no public safety risk.”

It’s Australia’s second major gun purchase prompted by mass shootings

The new purchase, expected to be approved by lawmakers next week, would be the largest federally funded program since 1996, when then-Prime Minister John Howard abolished guns after another shooting incident, in which 35 people were killed in the city of Port Arthur.

Just 12 days after the attack, Australian lawmakers passed legislation banning the sale and importation of all automatic and semi-automatic firearms and ammunition; to force people to present a valid reason, and wait 28 days, to buy any gun, and start a massive, mandatory gun purchase with banned weapons.

The government confiscated and destroyed about 700,000 firearms after the law was passed, cutting the number of gun-owning households in half.

“There’s no denying that gun-related homicides have fallen dramatically in Australia,” former prime minister Howard, who defied many in his conservative party to introduce the 1996 law, said. he told CBS News’ Seth Doane twenty years later, in 2016.

In the 15 years before those laws were passed, there were 13 mass shootings in Australia. Two decades later, there was none. Overall gun homicides have dropped by nearly 60% over the same period.

Asked to respond to critics who say the drop in gun deaths has not really happened because of the law, Howard told CBS News: “The number of people who die in mass shootings, gun-related homicides are down, gun-related suicides are down… Isn’t that evidence? Or are we expected to believe that all of that would magically happen? Come on!”

A study published earlier this year, however, found that Australia still has some way to go to fully implement the 2016 law, called the National Firearms Agreement. The paper, by the Australia Institute think tank, said some of the measures were still in place 29 years later, while others were being used consistently across states.

The legislation was “ambitious, politically daring, and necessary for public safety,” the report concluded, praising Howard’s willingness to defy other lawmakers.

But “Australia still allows minors to have gun licences, still has no National Firearms Register, and still has inconsistent laws that make enforcement difficult,” the group said, adding that gun ownership across the country had actually increased over the past three decades.

“There are now more than four million registered firearms privately owned in Australia: 800,000 more than before the purchase (in 1996),” the agency said in its May report. “Australians need gun laws that match the courage of the Howard Government, and right now Australia doesn’t have them.”

Albanese, along with state and territory leaders, agreed on Monday to look at ways to tighten gun laws, including speeding up the introduction of a national gun register called for by the 1996 law, making gun licenses available only to Australian citizens, and imposing new restrictions on the types of weapons that license holders can possess.

A memorial on the beach, and a day of reflection planned for the victims of Bondi Beach

Hundreds of people threw themselves into the sea at Bondi Beach on Friday to pay their respects to the 15 people killed in the terror attack, forming a giant ring of surfboards and paddleboards in the sea, as Albanese declared a national day of reflection to be observed on Sunday.

Albanese called on Australians to light candles at 6:47pm on Sunday, “one week after the attack.”

On Friday, swimmers and surfers paddled in a circle, jumping in the morning, splashing and roaring with emotion.

“They killed innocent victims, and today I’m swimming out of there and rejoining my community to bring back the light,” security consultant Jason Carr, 53, told AFP. “We are still burying the bodies. But I just realized that it is important.”

Carole Schlessinger, 58, the chief executive officer of the children’s charity, said there was “good energy” at the beach meeting. “Being together is an important way to try to deal with what’s going on.”

“It was really nice to be a part of it,” he said, adding: “I personally feel numb. I’m very angry. I’m very angry.”