Shortly after the siege in Sydney ended, the Prime Minister of Australia Tony Abbott was using the widely televised event as an excuse to claim that the gun control laws in Australia didn’t go far enough and needed to be changed. “There are questions to be asked when someone with such a history of infatuation with extremism, violent crime and mental instability should be in possession of a gun licence” he said, and added that he would not rest until Australians are safer. Unfortunately for Mr. Abbott’s narrative, it now appears that the New South Wales police have confirmed that the firearm used by the terrorist in question was purchased illegally, and the jihadi did not in fact posses a valid firearms license . . .
From the Sydney Morning Herald:
NSW police say they have no records of Martin Place siege gunman Man Haron Monis ever holding a gun licence.
This is despite the Prime Minister Tony Abbott asserting in a press conference earlier that Monis, killed by police in a gun battle after a 16-hour siege, had been allowed to legally own weapons.
“The NSW Police Force has conducted checks with the NSW Firearms Registry and can confirm there is no record of the 50-year-old man having held a firearms licence,” a statement issued this evening said.
The truth of the matter is that firearms licensing doesn’t really work. It never has. Criminals will get their hands on firearms, no matter how hard you try to control them. It’s in their nature — criminals don’t care enough about the law bother with registering their illegal guns.
This naturally poses a problem for the Australian government. If the Sydney gunman didn’t have a firearms license, that means their licensing system doesn’t work. It’s another chink in the gun control armor that highlights the insanity and security theater aspect of the whole scheme. But if the gunman did have a license — or, rather, if Australians believe he did — then obviously that’s justification to crack down even more on evil gun owners to get deadly firearms off the streets.
Civilian disarmament industrial complex activists have a penchant in the past for ignoring inconvenient facts, preferring to remain blissfully ignorant about what works and what doesn’t. For them, the ends justify the means, and even if they need to tell a few white lies to reach their utopian ideal, it will all be worth it in the end. It has yet to be seen whether the narrative that this was a legal gun owner will change significantly with these new revelations, or whether the Australian media will press ahead with their desire for still more anti-gun laws rather than prosecuting criminals.