Criminal Law

In the wake of the Port Arthur Massacre, Australia was left terrified as a lone gunman shot down 35 innocent people at Tasmania’s historic tourist precinct.

The reform that took place in the following months was swift and tenacious – resulting in a globally revered buyback scheme, the creation of a National Firearms Agreement and the destruction of more than 650000 firearms nationally.

To this day, however, gun control continues to polarise the nation.

As concerns over illegal firearm trafficking and 3D printed weapons galvanise debate, critics have begun to cast doubt over the effectiveness of current safeguards and protections.

With the Porepunkah shooting drawing these issues sharply back into the public’s purview, now is a good a time as any to contextualise the nature and extent of gun ownership in Australia, elucidate the strengths and weaknesses of the existing framework and explore the potential for further reform.

At a Glance: The National Firearm Agreement

Following the Port Arthur Massacre, public sensibilities towards firearms shifted immensely. Gun ownership was no longer seen as a right, but rather a privilege conditional on the state’s responsibility to ensure public safety.  The National Firearms Agreement codified this attitude: introducing a set of rules and regulations for gun regulation, which set  minimum requirements for:

• restrictions on certain types of firearms
• categories of firearms
• firearm registration and appropriate licensing of firearm users
• requiring individuals to have a “Genuine Reason” and a “Genuine Need” to acquire and use a firearm
• The safe storage of firearms and ammunition
• recording of all firearm sales and transfers, and
• the sale and transport of firearms

Under the National Firearm Agreement, the government has also implemented various firearm amnesty and buyback programs. These target public safety by allowing individuals to hand in unregistered or unwanted firearms without penalty or prosecution.

Amnesty schemes have contributed significantly to the decrease in the “grey” firearms market: the sale of firearms which should have been handed in or registered following the 1997 firearm reforms. Between 1996 and 2015, at least one million firearms were seized or surrendered, constituting around one-third of the national stockpile of privately owned firearms.

What the Numbers Say

While Australia’s National Firearm Agreement has long been regarded as the gold standard for gun control, the numbers paint a different story and indicate that reform may be necessary.

When Australia enacted its sweeping reforms in 1996, there were an estimated 3.2 million firearms nationwide.

Nearly three decades later, as police hunt down the country’s most wanted man through Victoria’s rugged countryside, gun ownership has surged by up to 25%.

As of 2024, according to a report by the Australia Institute, there were over four million guns owned by civilians – one for every seven Australians.

Although the proportion of licensed gun owners in the general population has decreased since the introduction of the National Firearms Agreement, Australians who have gun licenses now own a larger number of guns per person, with an average of 4.4 firearms per license across Australia. For example, data from the New South Wales firearm register shows that in Sydney, there are more than 70 individuals who own more than 100 firearms

In a global context, as of 2022, Australia had the 26^th largest number of privately owned guns. ‘

Inconsistent State and Territory Regulations

Even though firearm-related deaths declined from about 2.9 per 100,000 in 1996 to under 1 per 100,000 by 2018, the rise in gun ownership indicates that the pragmatic effect of the National Firearm Agreement is yet to be fully realised. Part of this failure can largely be attributed to inconsistency.

Throughout the years, the various resolutions contained within the agreement have been inconsistently implemented across states and territories, with no jurisdiction having complied fully with regulations. In some instances, state and territory legislation has even been weakened to undermine the National Firearm Agreement.

For Australia in particular, it is especially important that regulation is consistent across states due to the country’s large and often unmonitored borders. Inconsistent regulations or inadequate enforcement enable firearms owners to acquire firearms legally in one jurisdiction and use them illegally in another – placing public safety at significant risk.

These inconsistencies are exacerbated by regulatory loopholes that exploit the fact that recreational hunting is considered to be a ‘genuine reason’ to possess a firearm in most jurisdictions.  For example, in NSW, firearm licenses can be obtained using minimally verified “permission-to-shoot” letters for recreational hunting. The letters can be used indefinitely and aren’t routinely revalidated. A 2023 murder-suicide whereby the killer obtained a license in the way highlighted the dangers of the ‘loophole’ and has since led to calls for stricter renewal requirements.

Emerging Challenges

The growth of the illegal firearm market highlights the shortcomings of the current regulatory framework. While its size is unknown, official government estimates place the number of illicit firearms in circulation at as many as 600,000.

Research suggests that criminals can acquire firearms on the illicit market with relative ease and in a variety of different ways. Apart from theft, the most common way is ‘straw purchasing’ – when a licensed firearm holder buys weapons for criminals.

The illicit market for firearms has been augmented by advances in 3D printing technology. This has allowed the manufacturing of operable firearms without serial numbers or registration. While the possession of digital blueprints for 3D-printed firearms is criminalised by Section 51F of the Firearms Act 1996, enforcement is difficult and often reactive.

The recent shootings of police officers in Wieambilla in Queensland and Porepunkah in Victoria also raise new questions around so-called ‘sovereign citizens’ and how the law around guns should respond to the threats that they pose.

The Argument around Stricter Controls

Given the rise in gun ownership and the challenges that lie ahead, many believe that more should be done to regulate firearms.

Proponents of stricter gun controls believe that having high numbers of easily accessible firearms in the community presents an unacceptable risk to community safety. They place Australia in the same cultural context as the USA – and link the high rate of firearm fatalities with the high rate of firearm ownership.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there is an argument that individuals are owed a legal right to own firearms – analogous to the US imported by the Second Amendment of the Constitution. For example, in NSW Premier Chris Minns, alongside pro-gun groups, has backed a bill that guarantees “a right to hunt” on public lands.

A lot of the resistance against stricter gun control is substantiated by the belief that ‘guns don’t kill people, people do” and justified by references to the Nordic nations where there are high rates of firearm ownership but low rates of firearm. Many firearm lobby groups believe that firearms only present a danger in the context of illegal ownership, propagating the claim that most gun-related deaths are due to unlicensed firearm owners using illicit guns.

One quick look at the data quickly dispels this argument, however. According to the Australia Institute, most perpetrators of mass shootings are licensed gun owners. In Australia and New Zealand, 55% of mass shooting victims between 1987 and 2015 were killed by licensed gun owners using legal firearms.

The Push for A National Firearms Register

All the debate around stricter gun controls has reopened conversations around the National Firearm Registry. While the Howard Government promised the delivery of a national registry nearly 30 years ago as a part of the National Firearm Agreement, it has yet to come to fruition. Without a “national sharing-hub” for firearms, states and territories continue to collect and disclose data in an inconsistent way.

In 2022, for example, one of the perpetrators of the Wieambilla shooting was able to purchase ammunition in Queensland despite having a suspended license in NSW. This renewed calls for a national firearms register, and forced states to adopt a more proactive approach to sharing data on firearms.

Following mounting pressure, the creation of a national register was put back onto the agenda with the National Cabinet agreeing to its implementation. By 2028, it is expected to be up and running – providing a real-time “life cycle view” of registered firearm licenses and upgrading existing state and territory registries to a common national standard.

Police Federation Australia’s president, Alex Caruana, believes it will enhance cooperation between state and territory authorities in regulating firearms and combating firearm theft.

If you were able to track the firearms from the cradle to the grave and patterns were found, it would give you something to look at,” Caruana says.

“If it’s stolen in Queensland and used in a crime in WA, it can take days to figure out where it came from, but if it were all in a national database, we would be able to see immediately that it was stolen and trafficked across.”

However, others don’t seem to share the same sentiment as Caruana. Pro-firearm lobby groups such as the Shooters Union and SIFA have aligned together to rally against reforms such as the registry, believing it to be unnecessary and unjustifiably costly.

Looking Ahead

In the aftermath of the Porepunkah shooting, there have been calls to fast track the development of a national registry, however experts have warned that a reduction in gun violence necessitates more meaningful reform.

According to Dr Samara McPhedra, a violence prevention specialist at Griffith University, a national registry should not be a priority.

Instead, Australia should adopt a preventative approach that addresses the underlying issues that drive gun violence – programs focusing on things such as employment, mental health, social welfare and integration.

In all instances, any future reform would need to navigate the intricate tension between public safety and individual rights, all while being enforceable and adaptive to a changing world.