Potential for nationally consistent gun reform has quickly spiralled into state-by-state uncertainty.

Yet hope survives that key legislative gaps exposed by the shooting massacre of 15 people on Bondi Beach in December can be bridged.

A federal push to cap the number of firearms an individual can own and establish an Australia-wide gun buyback scheme have suffered a significant blow, with Victoria rejecting the reforms.

However, changes to greatly improve information sharing between Commonwealth security agencies like ASIO and the state and territory police who issue firearms licences, remain on the table.

So too does a national firearms registry first posed in the wake of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre and it is due to come online by mid-2028.

Most states have shunned the idea of restricting firearm ownership or placing harsher limits on faster reloading, straight-pull rifles like those used in the Bondi attack.

By implication, any sort of buyback is therefore moot.

An offer by Canberra to fund half the cost of a national scheme is contingent on states implementing caps.

However Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and now Victoria have all signalled they don't plan to.

Shooters and firearms advocates celebrated Victoria's decision as setting the tone for smaller states and territories to maintain their dissent.

After national cabinet agreed to wide-ranging change in the days after Bondi, NSW led the push with a range of reforms including capping ownership at four firearms for recreational hunters.

It joined WA which already boasted the nation's toughest ownership laws, having bolstering them with reforms in 2024 before implementing its own buyback program, which wrapped up in January.

So far, the two are the only jurisdictions willing to enforce limited ownership although the ACT is in the process of following suit.

NSW and WA have also reclassified several types of firearms including straight-pull rifles, which enabled the Bondi gunmen to shoot 11 people, 10 fatally, in less than 30 seconds.

Such weapons are therefore largely off limits for recreational shooters in both states.

Tasmania initially signalled it would also reclassify firearms and offer 1.5 times the market price for weapons under a national buyback.

But there are fears the island state may fold after witnessing others like Victoria set their own agenda.

Gun Control Australia's Piers Grove says the push for nationally consistent reform has become politicised.

"We're seeing Queensland trying to differentiate themselves from the federal government, now we've got Victoria clearly in election mode and Tasmania also walking to the beat of their own drum," he says.

Gun reform advocates and the Albanese government share the view that gun laws are only as strong as their weakest jurisdiction.

"If Queensland don't do anything, that becomes a honey pot for people to acquire guns not available in other jurisdictions and move them back to their home state," Mr Grove tells AAP.

Head of the the Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia, Tom Kenyon, calls the fractured jurisdictional approach "chaos".

He accuses NSW Premier Chris Minns of blowing up the National Firearms Agreement by rushing in reforms ahead of other states and territories.

"All the other states were saying, 'Well, well, well, we've got to go through a process and we've got to talk about this. We've got to consult with firearms groups," Mr Kenyon says.

He classifies what happened at Bondi as a failure of intelligence-sharing rather than atrocity aided by overly lenient firearm ownership rules.

"If they can find a way to improve the communication between federal intelligence agencies and state police, our organisation thinks that's an excellent thing because that would have prevented Bondi," he says.

A lack of communication between police and national Intelligence organisations has been a primary issue flagged by a royal commission into the Bondi attack.

A key component of legislative reforms which passed federal parliament in January in response to the killings was enabling the use of commonwealth intelligence for firearms licensing decisions.

The changes would allow state and territory registries to access ASIO and other security assessments through the existing national background check database, AusCheck.

"It's one of the things you can point at that might have prevented the tragedy," Mr Grove says.

The changes, along with a national firearms registry, would link state and territory police with government information systems in real time.

The commitment to a national registry and checks enabled through Auscheck remains a real possibility with Canberra continuing to back and partially fund the plan.

"Any state that chooses to not include that level of intel, I think they're going to have to answer to their own constituency if something like Bondi happens again in their backyard," Mr Grove says.