Opinion: What Gun Control Can’t Stop

Editor’s note: Latika Burke Australian author and journalist based in the UK. She is a former international reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. her book, “From India with love” The views expressed in this commentary are her own.read more CNN opinion.

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When news broke of the mass stabbing and murder of an infant in a Sydney shopping mall, right-wing commentators overseas were quick to misdiagnose the motive.

“Another day. Another terrorist attack by another Islamist terrorist. Six people dead, some seriously injured, including an infant.” tweeted British right-wing commentator Julia Hartley-Brewer.

But Hartley Brewer was wrong. And then she admitted that the post was wrong.

The motive was not Islamist, but an everyday threat to women: gender-based violence.

NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said the late attacker Joel Couch, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia according to his family, was identified as he entered the beach in the shopping suburb of Westfield in Bondi. He said it was “clear” he had the type of victims in mind. Mainly on Saturdays.

“The video (of the attack) speaks for itself, right?” Mr Webb told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

“It’s clear to me and the detectives that it’s an area of ​​interest, and it’s clear that the perpetrator focused on women and avoided men.

“Five of the deaths (six people) are women, and the majority of the hospitalized victims are also women,” she said.

Webb added that police do not know what Couch was thinking when he initiated the attack.

Detectives will no doubt take a hard look at his online activities to see if he belongs to a hate group operating in the darkest corners of the web.

Ms Couch’s devastated father, Andrew Couch, told Australian media he believed his “monster” son may have deliberately plotted the woman’s murder.

“Because he wanted a girlfriend, he had no social skills, and he was just mad,” the visibly distraught father added.

Just like Couch’s father, the nation is also traumatized. The brutal murder of multiple people, including a newborn mother, in broad daylight in an affluent suburb is something that even Australians read about in the news in other countries.

In rare cases, it can even occur in your backyard. In 1996, after the Port Arthur massacre, in which a lone gunman killed 35 people, then-Prime Minister John Howard, leader of the Conservative Party, took action and has enjoyed solid bipartisan support ever since. .

He enacted strict gun control laws and launched a massive buyout program. At the time, he had to face political opposition from his own supporters, but the lack of mass shootings since then has proven his tough stance.

But restricting public access to weapons capable of mass lethality will not stop hate ideologies from mixing with other harmful factors, such as radicalization and mental health issues.

This includes misogyny.

Australian women have the most sexist attitudes in the world, according to research submitted to the London-based World Institute for Women’s Leadership, chaired by Australia’s former only female prime minister, Julia Gillard. is taking.

According to Our Watch, Australia’s leading national violence prevention organization, which provided me with the following statistics, two in five women experience violence after the age of 15; The chances are much higher: 35% vs. 11%. Not a complete stranger, but someone you know.

This is part of why the Bondi attack was so shocking.

Patti Kinnersley, CEO of Our Watch, said while the motive for Saturday’s attack was complex and had not yet been determined, it was important for women’s safety to address sexist attitudes. He said it shows why it’s important.

“While we cannot directly speak to the causes or motivations of this particular incident, we do know that, more broadly, there is no evidence to suggest that mental illness is a factor in violence against women,” she said.

“Evidence consistently shows that the root causes of violence against women are rigid gender stereotypes, sexism and disrespect.

“The sad reality is that women are not safe when men have unequal and sexist views of them.”

A second shocking incident of violence hit the city again on Monday night, when a teenage boy stabbed worshipers, including Bishop Mar Mari Emanuel, who were celebrating Mass at the Assyrian Orthodox Church of Christ the Good Shepherd. shook.

Unlike the deadly Couch rampage, the church attack was declared an act of terrorism.

Roman Quadebrig, who worked for decades in Australian law enforcement, including counter-terrorism, said the motives behind the type of attacks witnessed in Sydney in just a few days were often driven by complex factors. He said that it is.

“These can be rooted in deep-rooted emotional or psychological causes and are often accompanied by poor mental health and substance abuse,” he said.

“Terrorists who act alone in non-conflict areas like Australia are typically young men with emotional or psychological vulnerabilities who are often socially misfits as a result of that vulnerability,” he said. added.

Quaedvlieg said the path to radicalization can be very fast and unnoticed thanks to technology.

“I believe that advances in technology, online connectivity, the proliferation of video images, and especially the promotion of violence, can inspire, embolden, normalize, and instruct those who are prone to extremism and violence. I believe,” he said.

He added that the motive for an attack does not have to be the same to inspire other extremists.

“Given that these attacks occurred in the same city, the short time span between them, and the high publicity of the Bondi Junction attack, the Wakeley attackers had an incentive to seek similar notoriety. “I felt confident that I was acting on my previous intentions,” he said.

But one thing these two men had in common was a history of knife use.

Joel Couch was obsessed with knives and had a collection of knives, his father told The Australian.

And according to ABC, the 16-year-old boy arrested in the church attack was charged with possessing a knife in November last year.

The ABC also reported that the boy used a switchblade, which is an illegal weapon in Australia. No one died in his attack inside the church.

Imagine if they were into guns.

Could Couch have slaughtered many more women if he had lived in the United States, where assault rifle-type semi-automatic firearms were much more readily available?

Thanks to technology, the possibility of self-radicalization was reduced, whatever the combination of motivating factors, at a time when Howard had the foresight to ban weapons that could cause mass casualties in seconds. It’s now faster than.

Australia is reeling from tragedy. Moms and dads will be hugging their kids a little tighter this week.

The two attacks are horrifying, painful and shocking, but part of what makes them especially shocking is that, unlike in the United States, where mass shootings sadly remain in the headlines for a long time, It was a rare incident of violence on the scale witnessed in Australia in recent days.