Beyond thoughts and prayers action becomes the moral choice by Virginia Robertson

Mass shootings are rare in Australia, and that rarity is not accidental. It is the product of political courage, collective memory, and a refusal to accept violence as an inevitable cost of modern life. Yet Sunday’s deadly massacre has reopened an old wound and, more importantly, an old conversation. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and other officials have signalled a willingness to revisit Australia’s gun laws, not because the system has failed entirely, but because complacency is its own kind of failure. This reaction matters. It demonstrates something increasingly absent elsewhere, the understanding that tragedy demands action, not ritualized mourning alone.

In many countries, particularly those where gun violence is routine, the response to mass shootings follows a tired script. Leaders offer condolences, flags are lowered, social media fills with prayers, and then nothing changes. The cycle repeats with grim predictability. Australia chose a different path decades ago, after Port Arthur, when it decided that public safety outweighed political convenience. Gun buybacks, strict licensing, and cultural shifts around firearms were not easy decisions, but they were decisive ones. The result has been clear: fewer guns, fewer shootings and fewer graves.

What makes the current moment significant is not panic, but principle. Albanese’s response does not suggest a nation abandoning its values in fear; it suggests a nation reaffirming them. Revisiting gun laws after a massacre is not an admission of weakness. It is an acknowledgment that laws, like societies, must evolve. Threats change. Technologies change. Human behaviour changes. To freeze policy in time out of pride is to mistake stubbornness for strength.

Critics will argue that further restrictions punish the many for the actions of the few. This argument resurfaces every time reform is proposed, and it is emotionally persuasive but intellectually hollow. Laws exist precisely because a small minority can cause enormous harm. We do not abolish traffic regulations because most drivers are responsible. We do not repeal safety standards because most buildings do not collapse. The point of regulation is prevention not punishment.

Australia’s approach stands in sharp contrast to nations that treat gun ownership as a near-sacred identity rather than a regulated responsibility. In those places, even the slaughter of children is not enough to overcome political paralysis. The phrase “thoughts and prayers” has become shorthand for moral surrender, a way of appearing compassionate while avoiding accountability. Australia’s leaders, by contrast, are signalling that grief should sharpen resolve, not dull it.

There is also something deeply democratic about this response. It trusts citizens to understand nuance, to accept inconvenience in exchange for safety, and to recognize that freedom is meaningless if it comes at the cost of constant fear. Australians have lived with strict gun laws for years without descending into tyranny or chaos. Life went on. Rural communities adapted. Sporting traditions survived. What did not survive, thankfully, was the normalization of mass death.

Revisiting gun laws does not mean assuming perfection is possible. No legal framework can eliminate violence entirely. But the goal of governance is not perfection; it is harm reduction. Every life saved is a moral victory, even if tragedies still occur. To argue otherwise is to adopt an all-or-nothing fatalism that excuses inaction.

This moment also challenges other nations to confront uncomfortable truths. Australia’s experience disproves the claim that gun violence is simply the price of freedom. It shows that cultural change is possible when leaders lead and citizens demand better. The choice is not between liberty and safety, but between courage and cowardice.

Sunday’s massacre should not define Australia, but the response to it might. By choosing reflection over resignation and policy over platitudes, Australian leaders are reminding the world that sane societies do not confuse mourning with solutions. They grieve, they act, and they adapt.

In the end, the real question is not whether further restrictions are politically risky. It is whether doing nothing is morally acceptable. Australia has answered that question before, and it appears ready to answer it again. That willingness to act, even when the odds are low and the cost is high, is what separates symbolic leadership from real leadership. It is what turns tragedy into resolve, and resolve into lasting change.

History will remember not only the violence itself, but the decisions made afterward. When leaders choose responsibility over rhetoric, they redefine what is normal. Australia’s example is imperfect, human, and evolving, but it proves that action, not ritualized grief, is how societies honour the dead with dignity.