Premier Roger Cook has just wrapped up a press conference at Osborne Park Hospital where he was asked about how alleged aspiring terrorist Jayson Joseph Michaels, 20, was a legal firearms owner.
Michaels was arrested on Friday and charged with planning a terrorist attack after WA and federal police uncovered an alleged manifesto, motived by a white supremacist ideology, detailing plans to attack Perth mosques, WA Parliament and the WA Police headquarters.
Guns and ammunition were seized during the search of his Bindoon home, which were owned legally.
Cook confirmed Michaels’ gun licence was going through the transition to the new licensing system which would eventually require him to get a medical examination as part of new fit and proper person tests.
When asked whether there was anything that could have been done to pick up Michaels’ alleged ideology sooner and get his guns off him quicker Cook said it was a challenge.
“Obviously, the fact that someone who has these thoughts and expresses these thoughts, has also access to deadly weapons, and of course, he had a cache of knives and other paraphernalia and was trying to purchase explosives. That’s obviously a very disturbing trend,” he said.
“We know that in relation to that online radicalism, that it doesn’t take years, sometimes it doesn’t even take a year, a matter of months, where people can have their thoughts escalated, particularly when they’re isolated and receiving a lot of influence online.
“So we need to continue to look at what the challenges are overall and ensure that our laws assist the police to meet those challenges.”
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