Susie O’Brien: The last thing we need after Sydney attack is more guns

The devastation caused by one man with a knife in Sydney was horrendous, but it could have been so much worse if gun nuts got their way.

Gun nuts from the US are using the Bondi mass stabbing to argue Australians need more weapons, including concealed guns.

They include Tara Bull, a far-right commentator who posted on social media: “How many would have survived if there was a good guy with a gun?”

How dare she use the inexplicable slaying of six innocent people to garner support for her deadly cause.

There was a good woman with a gun present – a gutsy, selfless police officer who shot Joel Cauchi dead at close range.

The last thing Australians need are more guns carried by security staff in shopping centres, or schools, or anywhere else.

Guns don’t save lives; guns take lives.

While guards may have been able to shoot Cauchi sooner, arming the nation’s 155,000 private security guards would put 155,000 more guns into circulation.

More guns equal more deaths.

The American experience shows this to be true: guns are not often used by people to protect themselves in violent attacks by strangers, but they are used in domestic violence incidents and suicides.

The devastation caused by one man with a knife was bad enough. It could have been so much worse. Picture: 9News

The devastation caused by one man with a knife was bad enough. It could have been so much worse.

Imagine the carnage Cauchi could have caused if he’d been able to get his hands on a semiautomatic handgun or rifle with a high-capacity magazine?

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made this point on the weekend, noting that if Cauchi had an automatic gun “then we would have been speaking about hundreds of deaths”.

He’s dead right.

Indeed, in December 2022, Cauchi posted on social media that he was “looking for groups of people who shoot guns, including handguns, to meet up, chat with and get to know”.

High accessibility of guns and high ownership of guns are key reasons why a third of the world’s massacres happen in the US.

As one Columbia University study found, a 10 per cent increase in gun ownership is associated with a 35 per cent increase in mass shootings.

Australia’s tough gun laws, a legacy of former PM John Howard, have saved many, many lives. We should be proud of these laws and never seek to water them down.

And we should certainly not listen to commentators from a country that leads the world in gun deaths.

Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist