ON August 24, the State Coroner will begin the next segment of the inquest for the people killed in the Lindt cafe siege. One of the issues he will explore is access to firearms.
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The coroner has said he would examine in detail the gun used by Man Monis. It is hoped the examination will provide answers to many questions, such as: how did he obtain the shotgun when he never owned a gun licence? Was the shotgun ever registered? Was it legally imported into Australia? If so, by whom? Did Monis practise shooting at a gun club where no shooting licence is required? How did he obtain the ammunition? What was the model, make, country of origin of the shotgun? Did the gun have a serial number, which would assist in tracing the firearm to the manufacturer?
Monis used a pump-action shotgun that had been sawn off at the barrel, shortening it and making it easier to conceal. After the Port Arthur massacre, these firearms were classified as "prohibited". However, in this case, the term "prohibited" means restricted, as pump-action shotguns are still legally available for limited purposes such as sport or target shooting, in farming, pest control and firearm collection.
The Joint Commonwealth and New South Wales review into the Lindt cafe siege states Monis' firearm may have entered Australia lawfully and became a "grey market" firearm – meaning it may not have been handed in as required during the 1996 gun buy-back. But the joint review report provides no information on how this hypothesis was formed, or how other access possibilities were ruled out.
Both the Australian Institute of Criminology and the Australian Crime Commission have found gun "leakage" from the legal market into the illegal market because of theft or the actions of corrupt gun dealers is a major problem. From April 2013 to March 2014, 76 shotguns were stolen in NSW, most from private homes.
As for the leakage of firearms because of corrupt gun dealers, in April 2012, Fairfax reported gun dealers were hiring out shotguns indefinitely to shooters dodging registration requirements, with dozens of guns disappearing.
In 2015, the Tasmanian police seized 100 firearms and a large quantity of ammunition from registered dealers who were selling firearms without registering them and failed to account for several firearms recorded on the dealers' licence.
Hopefully, the coroner will not only explore all possibilities as to how Monis may have obtained the gun, but also ways to trace firearms from "cradle to grave", because there is still no national tracking system in place.
The coroner's findings could be critical if Australia is to prevent further gun sieges, since it was not Monis' political religious/ideological beliefs alone that held members of the public hostage. It was the fact he was a man with beliefs who held a pump-action shotgun.
Let's hope the coroner can shed some light on how he got hold of it.
