After the Bondi Beach terror attack, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rushed out a massive national gun “buyback” and tougher licensing laws that hit law‑abiding shooters hardest, while doing nothing to stop terrorists or criminals.
Here's what is happening there now:
- Most Australian states and territories are refusing to sign onto his scheme or are still stalling past his March 31 deadline.
- Queensland, the Northern Territory, and South Australia have openly ruled it out, saying the problem is terrorism and extremism, not licensed gun owners.
- Western Australia already ran its own buyback where more than 80,000–83,000 guns were surrendered at a cost north of $60 million, and it’s still being held up as “not enough” by gun control activists.
Even members of the Australian opposition are calling this what it is: a “desperate overreach” and a distraction from the government’s failures on antisemitism and extremism. Meanwhile, gun owners and industry groups are sounding the alarm that thousands of ordinary Australians and small businesses are being punished by rushed, botched legislation that criminals will ignore anyway.
Remember: Australia doesn’t have a Second Amendment. Gun ownership there is treated as a government‑granted “privilege,” not a right. And even with that stacked deck, politicians are now running into fierce resistance when they try to use tragedy as an excuse for mass confiscation dressed up as a “buyback.”
If this is what “common sense gun reform” looks like in a country with no right to keep and bear arms, imagine what our own gun control lobby would do here if they ever got the same power.
This is why we fight. Stay informed. Stay vocal. Support the groups defending the Second Amendment, because what’s happening in Australia is a glimpse of the future anti‑gun activists want for the United States.