By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Six people are dead, and four others seriously injured, including a church bishop, in two separate knife attacks in Sydney, Australia, and the chairman of a leading U.S. gun rights organization is pointing to the island continent’s restrictive gun control laws as being partly to blame.
A Saturday rampage at a popular shopping mall left five women and one man dead, and the killer was fatally shot by an Australian police officer.
According to The Standard, the second attack happened Monday—two days after the first mass killing—at a church in the Wakeley district. Incredibly, this assault occurred during a life-streamed service. The suspect in that case was taken into custody.
While tributes are reportedly “pouring in” for the victims of the mall massacre, the chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms amplified the difference between living in Australia and residing in the U.S.A. One has the Second Amendment, the other tightly regulates guns and forbids the carrying of firearms in public, openly or concealed.
“American gun prohibitionists frequently whine about the alleged ‘insanity’ represented by millions of private citizens who are legally armed in public,” CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb observed. “True insanity is disarming the public, leaving them defenseless against madmen who attack without warning, and literally face no resistance from their victims.”
By contrast to the events in Sydney, especially at a church, back in 2019, in which a gunman opened fire inside the sanctuary at the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas was shot dead by an armed security volunteer as at least six other members of the congregation drew guns and covered the fallen killer. The political climate Down Under, where there is no Second Amendment, is quite different.
“Australia banned a wide array of firearms following the 1996 massacre in Port Arthur,” Gottlieb recalled, “and carrying firearms in public, openly or concealed, is prohibited. One might suppose that after the events of this weekend, Australia will try to ban knives.”
In addition to the six people killed at the mall on Saturday, a dozen others were injured. They include one infant. A majority of the people killed and injured are women, and authorities are speculating whether the knifeman was targeting females. The killer has been identified as Joel Cauchi, a resident of Queensland.
“We know from various research that armed private citizens in America use firearms in self-defense upwards of two million times a year by most estimates, often without firing a shot,” Gottlieb stated. “We are blessed in this country to have a Second Amendment in our Bill of Rights, and right-to-bear arms provisions in nearly all state constitutions. This is why CCRKBA continues to vigorously defend that right from attack by those who would erase it.”
“Those who would disarm law-abiding U.S. citizens are the real enemies of public safety,” he said. “Their alternate universe is a dangerous fantasy which places innocent lives at risk just so they can imagine they have accomplished something. They should try explaining this to the Australian families who are now without their loved ones because they couldn’t fight back.”
