SYDNEY: Australia will use a sweeping buyback scheme to “get guns off our streets,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Friday as hundreds plunged into the ocean to honor Bondi Beach shooting victims.
Sajid Akram and his son Naveed are accused of opening fire on a Jewish festival at the famed surf beach on Sunday, killing 15 people in one of Australia’s deadliest mass shootings.
Albanese vowed to toughen laws that allowed 50-year-old Sajid to own six high-powered rifles.
“There is no reason someone living in the suburbs of Sydney needed this many guns,” he said.
Australia would pay gun owners to surrender “surplus, newly banned and illegal firearms.”
It would be the largest gun buyback since 1996, when Australia cracked down on firearms in the wake of a shooting that killed 35 people at Port Arthur.
Australia will remember those slain at Bondi with a national day of reflection, the prime minister said.
Albanese urged Australians to light candles at 6:47 p.m. (0747 GMT) on Sunday, December 21 — “exactly one week since the attack unfolded.”
High alert
Sydney remains on high alert almost a week on from the shootings.
Armed police released seven men from custody Friday, a day after detaining them on a tip they may have been plotting a “violent act” at Bondi Beach.
Police said there was no established link with the alleged Bondi gunmen and “no immediate safety risk to the community.”
Many hundreds returned to the ocean off Bondi Beach on Friday in another gesture to honor the dead.
Swimmers and surfers paddled into a circle as they bobbed in the gentle morning swell, splashing water and roaring with emotion.
“They slaughtered innocent victims, and today I’m swimming out there and being part of my community again to bring back the light,” security consultant Jason Carr told AFP.
“We’re still burying bodies. But I just felt it was important,” the 53-year-old said.
“I’m not going to let someone so evil, someone so dark, stop me from doing what I do and what I enjoy doing.”
Carole Schlessinger, a 58-year-old chief executive of a children’s charity, said there was a “beautiful energy” at the ocean gathering.
“To be together is such an important way of trying to deal with what’s going on,” she told AFP.
“It was really lovely to be part of it. I personally am feeling very numb. I’m feeling super angry. I’m feeling furious.”
Heroes
Meanwhile, a married couple who were shot and killed as they tried to stop the gunmen were laid to rest at a Jewish funeral home.
Bondi locals Boris and Sofia Gurman were among the first killed as they tried to wrestle Sajid to the ground.
“The final moments of their lives they faced with courage, selflessness and love,” rabbi Yehoram Ulman told mourners.
“They were, in every sense of the word, heroes.”
Father Sajid was killed in a gunfight with police, but his 24-year-old son Naveed survived.
The unemployed bricklayer has been charged with 15 counts of murder, an act of terrorism, and dozens of other serious crimes.
Authorities believe the pair drew inspiration from the Daesh group.
Australian police are investigating whether the pair met with Islamist extremists during a visit to the Philippines weeks before the shooting.