It’s Not About the Guns: The Wrong Lesson From the Bondi Beach Attack

It may be too early for an in-depth analysis of the horrific attack on a Hanukkah gathering at Australia’s famous Bondi Beach, beyond the obvious fact that it was yet another act of Islamist terror, the latest in a long line of attacks meant to murder Jews. But it’s not too early to draw a single, transparently obvious conclusion. The Bondi Beach attack totally undermines the common progressive focus on the guns rather than the shooters.

The guns at Bondi Beach didn’t simply jump out of a car and begin shooting on their own. They were brought to the location by a father and son team of Islamist terrorists who used them to murder 15 people, including a ten-year-old girl who was deliberately targeted as she tried to run away.

Dozens more were wounded, and the toll might have been much higher but for the heroism of Ahmed al Ahmed, the now-famous Muslim grocer who attempted to disarm one of the attackers, and the further heroism — and firearms skill — of detective Cesar Barraza, who killed one of the attackers with a remarkable, long-distance shot. (RELATED: Did Iran Orchestrate the Hannukah Murder of Jews at Bondi Beach?)

An event such as this surely deserves thoughtful reflection, particularly by government policymakers and those, both here and in Australia, who influence government policy. And yet, once again, we see that obvious truths are being ignored in favor of strict adherence to the long-established leftist narrative. For years now, Australia has been lauded by the usual gun control fanatics for having some of the most stringent gun restrictions in the entire Western world. Here in the U.S., gun haters have repeatedly held up Australia as a model, calling for similar measures as the solution to “gun violence.”

Now, despite the absurdity of such measures exposed by the Bondi Beach massacre, it seems that the only response to lethal violence — I refuse to use the term “gun violence” — is to double down, yet again, in a search for even more draconian gun control measures. Prime Minister Albanese of Australia, in particular, has exemplified in recent days his commitment to this approach, but he’s scarcely alone.

Suffice it to say that the continued pursuit of “gun control” stands revealed as an idiotic response to events such as this. We’re often reminded that there are more guns than people in the United States, but it’s not just the United States, nor is it some type of “bad black gun.” The Australian shooters and the assassin of Charlie Kirk used ordinary hunting rifles, the weapons that even the most egregious anti-gun fanatics have heretofore seemed willing to exempt.

It’s not just the United States but the entire world that is afloat on a sea of guns. AK-47s, the real selective-fire, full auto-capable versions, are now readily available across Europe, becoming the weapons of choice for criminals from Marseille to Malmö. This should be unsurprising, since there are, by conservative estimate, over 100 million AK-47s and AK-47 clones distributed around the world. And that’s just one category of firearm. No one knows just how many functioning firearms there are in the world. Many millions have been produced in recent years, but firearms are durable goods. A bolt-action Mauser manufactured a century ago, if properly maintained, is as capable of killing as the hunting rifles used by the terrorists at Bondi Beach.

The sheer numbers should tell us two things about the absurdity of the gun control position. First, if there are hundreds of millions of firearms in circulation, why aren’t there hundreds of millions of murders? It’s the gun, they keep telling us, blaming an inanimate object rather than the person who pulls the trigger. Second, a policy predicated on a blanket removal of guns from society is bound to fail, if only because there are too many in circulation for even the most radical confiscation measures to succeed.

I could go on and on, but the message should be clear. “Gun control” is really about targeting responsible gun owners, men and women who would never commit a crime, while utterly failing to address the availability of illegal firearms to criminals and terrorists. But in the aftermath of the Bondi Beach pogrom, the gun control arguments have, I think, been exposed as completely fallacious. No intelligent person should cling to the anti-gun position any longer.

So why, then, do the gun control bitter-enders refuse to let go? The answer, simply, is that addressing the true causes of lethal violence in the Western world requires abandoning a series of leftist shibboleths. The first of these is that there is no such thing as a criminal subculture in our countries. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. In the United States, shootings are overwhelmingly confined to big city neighborhoods riven by gang conflicts and drug trafficking. The figures vary, and the various figures are often attacked by left-wing academics, but if one subtracts these neighborhoods from the equation, the overall murder rate in the United States would decline precipitously.

Or consider cities like Malmö in Sweden, or Marseille in France, where gangs have taken over whole neighborhoods, waging war on each other and, increasingly, on the police and on innocent bystanders. The case of Sweden is particularly sad, since this was a country that, only a few short years ago, enjoyed an absolutely minuscule level of murders and related violent crime. The latter aspect is particularly important, since violence should be measured not only in deaths, but also in a pattern of intimidation.

And while guns have proliferated, the escalation of violence utilizes many other weapons. Baseball is America’s game, not Europe’s, but baseball bats have become a terrifying weapon in many European cities. In the U.K., knife crime — including, fearsomely, machete crime — has become all too common. (RELATED: Australian Machete Ban Ignores the Real Causes of Crime)

In every case, however, here and abroad, the problem of criminal violence is one associated with the ethno-cultural darlings of left-wing ideology. Thus, workable solutions would begin with measures the left absolutely hates. “Stop and frisk,” for example, works very well, but it entails a high degree of profiling, and this is anathema to those who run our cities.

The cop on the beat knows full well who the criminals are and where criminality is likely to flourish. They develop a highly-trained sense of who is armed and dangerous–their lives, after all, depend on this. Ironically, “stop and frisk” represents perhaps the very best means of taking illegal handguns off the street, but in progressive cities, the police are prohibited from doing this, the one “gun control” measure that might make a meaningful difference. (RELATED: Welcome to New York. This Is What Dystopia Looks Like.)

Something similar might be said when dealing with the violence of the criminally insane. Young women stabbed, burned, doused with acid, or subway passengers pushed in front of oncoming trains. The solution involves identifying those with these issues and taking them off the streets. Treat them, by all means, but don’t allow them to mingle with ordinary citizens. Moreover, understand that homelessness is not — Gavin Newsom or Zohran Mamdani to the contrary — an issue of lack of housing. It is the direct result of our apparent inability to deal honestly with mental illness or drug addiction, separately or in combination. (RELATED: The Burning of Bethany Magee)

But as the Bondi Beach massacre should make absolutely clear, the greatest challenge of all lies in our civilizational confrontation with radical Islam. We can applaud, along with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Muslim grocer who risked his life to disarm one of the terrorists, but we should remain suspicious of naïve “religion of peace” fantasies. There is a significant element within Islam today that fanatically hates the Judeo-Christian traditions, even in their watered-down, post-Enlightenment secular form. (RELATED: Trivializing Religion Left Us Unprepared for Political Islam)

We deceive ourselves that we can all hold hands and sing “Kumbaya” together. It may well be that the majority of Muslims have no violent animus toward Christians; it might even be the case that many of them would willingly live alongside Jews. However, we would do well to ask ourselves why so few Muslims now resident in our countries seem willing to condemn their radical co-religionists when events such as Bondi occur. It may be that many quietly support the goals of their terrorist brethren, even if they’re unwilling to resort to violence themselves — never mind that these quiet sympathizers become a breeding ground for the radicals.

It’s also possible that many Muslims genuinely do wish to live in peace with their non-Muslim neighbors, but if so, why do so few speak up? The answer, I believe, lies in the repeatedly demonstrated dynamic between the violent few and the peaceful majority. Whether in the old South of the Ku Klux Klan, or in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, or any number of other places at other times, the peaceful majority remains a silent majority as long as the price of speaking up is to be beaten or murdered.

There’s a vicious cycle at work here. Governments sit back and wait for this “silent majority” to become vocal, while peaceful citizens remain quiet, hoping that governments will take action against the radicals. Furthermore, the institutionally dominant left offers cover for the radicals, as we’ve witnessed since the Gaza pogrom of Oct. 7, 2023. When “globalize the Intifada” is not simply tolerated, but encouraged by Western governments, academia, and the media, it would be a very brave ordinary Muslim who would choose to speak against it. (RELATED: Radical Chic Continues at Georgetown)

There are a few such, and we can hope there will be more. Perhaps the example of Ahmed al Ahmed’s heroism will serve as an inspiration. His was an act of courage, but above all an act of simple human decency, an unwillingness to stand by while evil is being done. If there are to be more like him, then we have to do better ourselves. We need institutions that no longer make excuses for radical Islamist terrorism. We need no more “anti-colonial” narratives, no more complicity with anti-Jewish hatred, above all, no more self-hatred, no more cultivated hatred for a history of which, by all rights, we should be proud. (RELATED: The Anti-Colonial Shadow Over Mamdani’s Socialism)

The solution to the murderousness on display at Brown University, on Bondi Beach, and in countless other moments of terror will never be yet another mindless gun control nostrum. It will never be found in the fecklessness of governments who insist on blaming an inanimate object for the horrors that flow from passionate — and passionately cultivated — hatred.

Instead, it will come when we stand up for ourselves once again, for the values that for centuries have been the light of the world. It will come when we no longer tolerate criminality on our streets. It will come when we find the courage to confront Islamist terrorism whenever and wherever it presents itself, not just with pious words, but, when necessary, by forthright action. It will come when we finally defend and promote simple human decency against a world that cultivates hatred — the ultimate indecency.

READ MORE from James H. McGee:

Donald Trump’s Civilizational Defense Strategy

The Burning of Bethany Magee

Getting Ahead of Ourselves About the 2028 Elections

James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. He’s just published his new novel, The Zebras from Minsk, the sequel to his well-received 2022 thriller, Letter of Reprisal. The Zebras from Minsk find the Reprisal Team fighting against an alliance of Chinese and Russian-backed terrorists, brutal child traffickers, and a corrupt anti-American billionaire, racing against time to take down a conspiracy that ranges from the hills of West Virginia to the forests of Belarus. You can find The Zebras from Minsk (and Letter of Reprisal) on Amazon in Kindle and paperback editions.