Four killed and at least one injured in a mass shooting in Darwin, Australia

Police arrest the suspect in the attack. CBS News/AP/ABC.

Four people have been killed and at least one other was injured in a mass shooting in Darwin, Australia. CBS News. The suspect used a pump action shotgun to kill four men and wound a woman in a rampage through the Northern Australian city. The suspect was 45 years old and was a parolee that actually had an ankle bracelet on at the time of the attack. The suspect was arrested after making contact with the police and was tackled and hit with a taser. Australia has some of the strictest gun control in the world and pump action shotguns are extremely restricted there. It is unclear how the attacker received his firearm. This is the third major mass shooting since Australia introduced it's gun control laws after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre. 

My Comment:

Seems like a major failure at all levels for the Australian government and police forces. Forgetting about the implications of this attack on Australia's gun control laws, it's absolutely amazing to me that this was a convicted felon out on parole wearing an ankle bracelet. It's very clear that the attacker in this case should not have been let out. It sounded like the attacker was a career criminal that was known to the police and this probably could have been prevented if he hadn't been released on parole. 

The idea that someone out on parole could cause a massacre like this is a concerning one. You would have thought that his ankle bracelet would have gone off if he was wandering the streets of Darwin with a shotgun, and they may have done so, but it didn't seem to help stop or prevent this attack. Something went wrong here and I hope that is what the focus is on, instead of the tool he used to carry out this attack.  

There is pretty much no way that this suspect's gun was legally owned. Not only is Australia very strict on gun laws, in almost any nation he would have been barred from possessing or purchasing a firearm due to his felony conviction and the fact he was on parole. There was absolutely no way for him to obtain this shotgun legally but somehow he still did it. 

This attack seems strange to me. Details are fuzzy but it seems like he was just shooting random people at multiple locations. After shooting at least five he simply gave himself up to police who, quite understandably, tackled and tasered him. It's very possible he simply ran out of shotgun shells but even then you would think that he would either have tried to get away or would have continued his massacre through other means. 

I think the response to this attack will be all too predictable. Australia was already considering stricter gun laws after the Christchurch shooting in nearby New Zealand, and this will likely push them over the edge. How Australia's already draconian and unconscionable gun laws could get any worse is beyond me but I am sure they will find away. They found a way to do so after the two other mass shootings they had after the Port Arthur massacre, which strangely never get reported in US media when discussing Australia's gun laws.

But of course, gun laws did nothing to prevent this attack. Somehow a convicted felon on parole was able to find a gun. In theory, he shouldn't have been able to find a gun in any country but somehow he still did. He either had it stashed away somewhere or an illegal seller gave it to him. Either way it's proof that even in a place that has all but eliminated the right to keep and bear arms people will find away to kill multiple people if they want to.