The man who tackled one of two terrorists carrying out an ISIS-inspired attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach told CBS News he never thought to shoot the attacker in an interview that aired Monday.
Two Pakistani migrants opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration on Dec. 14 in an attack inspired by the radical Islamic terrorist group called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, killing at least 15 people and wounding 40, with one gunman being slain on the scene by police. Ahmed al-Ahmed, who was captured on video wrestling the gun away from one of the terrorists, told CBS News he “didn’t think” when he acted.
“My soul and all my everything in my organ, in my body, in my brain, asked me to go, and to defend and to save innocent life,” al-Ahmed, who owns a convenience store, said. “I didn’t think about it.”
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Video posted on YouTube from 7 News showed Ahmed taking down one of the gunmen suspected of involvement in a mass shooting targeting the Jewish community, and later showed him setting the disarmed gunman’s weapon down and throwing an object at the disarmed terrorist while the second terrorist involved in the attack apparently fired at al-Ahmed, who was shot twice.
“I didn’t think to shoot, and I don’t want to put my hand in blood. I don’t think I’m the one who can take life of people,” al-Ahmed told CBS News.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced plans Dec. 19 for a mass confiscation of firearms in response to the ISIS-inspired terrorist attack at Bondi Beach, which could include a limit on how many firearms a person could own, limiting firearms licenses to Australian citizens and “additional use of criminal intelligence” to determine if a license to own a firearm should be granted.
Australia passed legislation that required owners of semi-automatic firearms and certain pump-action firearms to surrender them to the government in a mandatory “buyback” following a 1996 mass shooting that killed 35 people. Many Democrats have cited the swift enactment of the sweeping gun ban as a model response to mass shootings, specifically when addressing so-called “assault weapons.”
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