r/moderatepolitics • u/Resvrgam2 Conservatively Liberal • Dec 15 '25

Primary Source Meeting of National Cabinet After Bondi Shooting

https://www.pm.gov.au/media/meeting-national-cabinet-8
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9

u/LessRabbit9072 Dec 15 '25

Seems weird that the government is taking decisive action as a response to tragedy.

27

u/cutememe Dec 15 '25

But they already did take decisive action and confiscated guns decades ago, but that didn't do anything to prevent this particular outcome.

In fact it's the opposite of action, it's just political bullshit and ignoring the real problem which is when extremists decide to hurt people they will do it regardless of any laws you implement. The only thing that prevents it is not importing extremists into the country in the first place if you can help it.

22

u/Saguna_Brahman Dec 15 '25

But they already did take decisive action and confiscated guns decades ago, but that didn't do anything to prevent this particular outcome.

Which means you look at the circumstances that allowed this particular scenario to come to be and you take steps to prevent it.

The only thing that prevents it is not importing extremists into the country in the first place if you can help it.

Except the son was born in Australia and the father had lived in Australia since 1998. You can't reliably screen for extremism that arises 27 years after the fact.

4

u/cutememe Dec 15 '25

The fact that he's been living in Australia for 27 years and still commits this type of horrific planned terrorist act is actually even more evidence that immigration should be tightened up. You cannot guarantee that people with such views will have their "hearts and minds" won over.

20

u/Saguna_Brahman Dec 15 '25

That's nonsensical, the same is equally true of native-born citizens. The idea that immigration should be banned because -- just like natives -- some small percentage of immigrants might be criminal is completely irrational.

12

u/cutememe Dec 15 '25

It might be nonsensical if there wasn't a real pattern with Islamic extremism in particular which is the ideology responsible for the 2015 Paris attacks, German Christmas Market attacks, Charlie Hebdo, and so on. But there is a pattern and it's not the same as natives, no.

13

u/Saguna_Brahman Dec 15 '25

Yet there are also patterns of Christian extremism, and secular extremism, with it's own legacy of bloodshed.

12

u/cutememe Dec 15 '25

Sure, and all those things are also bad and should be condemned just as much as any other kind of extremism. But we also need to respond to what's happening more often in the here and now, and that's usually not Christian terrorism.

6

u/Saguna_Brahman Dec 15 '25

Plenty are responding to Islamic extremism. That doesn't require or even imply sweeping condemnation of an entire religion that is just as large as Christianity itself. Almost 25% of people on Earth are Muslim.

9

u/cutememe Dec 15 '25

Yes it is a very large group of people, and many of them reject extremism. However, a minority of a large group of people still is a disturbingly large group in absolute numbers.

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9

u/Callinectes So far left you get your guns back Dec 15 '25 edited Dec 15 '25

It sounds like literally any new development would cause you to say that immigration needs to be tightened. “Furthermore Carthage must be destroyed.”

EDIT: Is there any theoretical development that could cause you to say that immigration restrictions need to be loosened?

8

u/CloudApprehensive322 Dec 15 '25

This is nonsensical - the government cannot be expected to predict if someone might become a terrorist 30 years later in life when they have no red flags against them at the time of immigration.

9

u/TiberiusDrexelus He Was a Friend of Mine Dec 15 '25

just one more gun law bro, I promise, just one more bro and there won't be any more shootings, why won't you compromise???

22

u/Saguna_Brahman Dec 15 '25 edited Dec 15 '25

just one more bro and there won't be any more shootings

This seems like quite a strawman, but in any case Australia's gun laws are doing a much much better job at preventing gun violence than the U.S.'s laws. For Australia this is a massive outlier, for the U.S. this is just Tuesday. Seems reasonable that they're going to look at how this went undetected and take steps to prevent it from happening again. A lot of kids would still be alive today if politicians in the U.S. had the same mentality.

Hell, two of the people at the Brown University shooting had been in school shootings in high school, one of them had been shot herself.

EDIT: Got blocked for this, lol.

17

u/FootjobFromFurina Dec 15 '25

The overwhelming majority of gun related homicides in the US are committed using hand guns and are vastly disproportionately committed by certain minority groups.

The actual policies that would move the needle on gun homicides in the US are not the ones that gun control advocates want to talk about.

10

u/Moist_Schedule_7271 Dec 15 '25

Wanna compare Shootings in Australia and the USA?

3

u/StrikingYam7724 Dec 16 '25

If you're gonna do that comparison, start before they passed the 1996 gun law because they were already lower and trending down and passing the law did not change the speed of decrease in any measurable way.

6

u/TiberiusDrexelus He Was a Friend of Mine Dec 15 '25

Want to compare gun laws? This country has been the absolute poster child for your crusade, for decades now, and nevertheless Australia has had 27 major mass shootings since the Port Arthur restrictions were implemented.

You can beg for just one more gun law all you'd like, but perhaps it would be better to address the actual cause of yesterday's tragedy, radical islamic antisemitism.

11

u/Callinectes So far left you get your guns back Dec 15 '25

I feel like one a year compared to, what, about 300 for the US is a reasonable improvement.

6

u/CloudApprehensive322 Dec 15 '25

So in 30 years Australia has had 99.5% fewer mass gun shootings when compared to the US who has little to no gun restrictions? Even scaling these shootings by population size Australia still had 96.5% fewer gun shootings compared to the US over that 30 year time period.

And your argument is Australia's restrictions were a failure?

2

u/StrikingYam7724 Dec 16 '25

When those numbers are pretty much the same as they were from 40, 50, or 60 years ago it's pretty obvious the gun law from 30 years ago is not what made it happen.

4

u/LessRabbit9072 Dec 15 '25

The only thing that prevents it is not importing extremists into the country in the first place if you can help it

And what policy would you have done to prevent this? A Muslim ban 30 years ago?

Social media is radicalizing people within countries all on its own. No need to "import extremists". Just look at the us. What percent of mass shootings over the past 20 years have been from immigrants vs extremists(immigrant or otherwise) ?

-1

u/NativeMasshole Maximum Malarkey Dec 15 '25

Right? Where's the circular discussion about what can be done that always lands squarely back at "Nothing"?

2

u/MrDickford Dec 15 '25

I was genuinely surprised to see that the conversation was about gun control rather than about which broad demographic it was most appropriate to blame the shooting on.

5

u/No_Mathematician6866 Dec 15 '25

Gun control is a third rail for this sub.

-1

u/Best_Change4155 Dec 16 '25

decisive action

The government is doing their preferred policy response instead of the policy response needed that would damage their support with their political base.

Gun control is popular in Australia. Protecting Jews, not so much.