Image: Photo: DEAN LEWINS/AAP
A new poll has shown that Australians of all political alignments are united in their desire for tougher gun regulations as the NSW Government under Chris Minns reconvenes to vote on proposed changes to the law.
The latest Resolve Political Monitor poll of 1010 Australians has found that 76% Australians believe that these laws should be altered to be more restrictive, as per the Sydney Morning Herald. Specific voter bases were also all highly supportive of the changes, with the highest support for changing the laws coming from Labor voters.
This poll also found that Australians were in support of specific ideas for changing gun legislation. Ideas like tougher regulations on high-powered guns, limits on number of guns owned, time limits on licences and the creation of a national firearms database all received over 80% support, while the restriction of who can receive a licence had the lowest support at 72%.
These results comes in the wake of the Bondi Beach shooting on Sunday December 14th, which saw gunmen Sajid and Naveed Akram kill 15 innocent people on the first day of Hanukkah.
Additionally, participants were asked what the priorities for the federal government should be going forward. Preventing terrorism and terrorist attacks ranked number one at 49% of the overall votes, followed by tackling crime in general at 45% and restricting access to guns at 35%.
NSW Government looking to change gun, protest laws
Meanwhile, the NSW Government is currently reconvening to push through reforms to gun control laws, which also include sweeping changes to protest law.
Premier Chris Minns said of the legislation last week: “Gun reform alone will not solve hatred or extremism, but we can’t fail to act on restricting access to weapons which could lead to further violence against our citizens.
“We cannot undo what happened in Bondi, but we can act decisively to reduce the risk of this ever happening again. These reforms are about thing: protecting people.”
Despite that, both pro-gun advocates and civil rights groups have both raised their concerns about these fast-tracked laws and their potential impact on citizens.
Meanwhile, the Victorian government is also planning to reassess its state’s gun regulations in the wake of the Bondi attack, as well as hate speech laws and the possibility of granting police more powers. Calls for a Royal Commission into the Bondi attack have also continued to grow, despite prime minister Anthony Albanese’s current opposition to the idea.
