Dec. 30, 2025 6 AM PT
To the editor: In a letter to the editor, Martin Cooper of Encino asserted that Australian leaders “don’t get it” regarding the Bondi Seashore taking pictures throughout a Hanukkah celebration that took 15 lives (“Letters to the Editor: Australia’s problem isn’t gun laws. It’s antisemitism,” Dec. 18). Cooper says the issue is antisemitism, not gun management legal guidelines, as if the tragedy lends itself to a simplistic, one-off resolution to forestall future assaults. He requires elevated training moderately than stricter gun legal guidelines.
Why not each? Why not a multifaceted technique?
Sure to much more restrictive gun management legal guidelines. Although Australia has lengthy been thought of the gold commonplace for gun possession legal guidelines, an estimated 260,000 illegal weapons have been nonetheless in circulation in Australia in 2022. In keeping with the Australia Institute, there are greater than 4 million legally owned firearms within the nation.
Sure to extra training to scale back antisemitism. Along with the already current packages that embody Holocaust education, grassroots initiatives run by nonprofits and college curricula, the Australian authorities just lately introduced a new taskforce to assist the training system fight antisemitism.
Sure to extra laws geared toward eliminating hate speech and punishing those that have interaction in such habits.
Sure to higher coordination amongst companies to trace potential threats. One of many alleged gunmen was reportedly examined for six months for attainable ties to an Islamic State terrorist cell. Although the evaluation apparently discovered no indication of a risk of him partaking in violence, shouldn’t there nonetheless be a registry of those that have been topic to investigations?
It’s naive to suppose the one reply is extra training. This drawback is just too difficult for a one-issue resolution.
Teresa DeCrescenzo, Studio Metropolis
