Port Arthur massacre (Australia)

The Port Arthur massacre was a mass shooting that took place in and adjacent to the Tasmanian town of Port Arthur, Australia, on 28 and 29 April 1996. The attack, committed by a twenty-eight-year-old intellectually disabled gunman named Martin Bryant, left thirty-five people dead and an additional eighteen wounded. Martin, who was eventually convicted and sentenced to thirty-five life terms for the murders, was alleged to have carried out the attack in response to a dispute between his father and the owners of a guesthouse where part of the massacre occurred. With his conviction, Martin earned the dubious distinction of becoming the worst mass murderer in Australian history. More importantly, the Port Arthur Massacre led Australian government officials to enact stricter gun control laws. This included an almost total ban on all automatic and semiautomatic weapons. A feature film about the Port Arthur massacre was produced in 2020.

History of Port Arthur

Port Arthur is widely regarded as the premier tourist destination within the Australian state of Tasmania. That was not always the case, however. For much of its early history following the arrival of European settlers, one Australia’s numerous penal colonies was in Port Arthur. Despite also being closely associated with the tragic massacre, Port Arthur has still cultivated an overwhelmingly positive reputation as a leading tourism hub and one of Australia’s most beautiful locales.

Port Arthur’s colonial history stretches back to the 1830s. The region was named in honor of George Arthur, a colonial official who took office as lieutenant governor of Van Diemen’s Land in 1823. Van Diemen’s Land was the original name given to the island state now known as Tasmania. Port Arthur itself is situated on the Tasman Peninsula just over 100 kilometres southeast of the Australian mainland city of Hobart.

Port Arthur was initially founded as a timber station in late 1830. However, within three years, it was transformed into a penal colony. Because of its remote location and the prison being touted as inescapable, the Port Arthur penal colony housed the worst convicts and repeat offenders sent to Australia from Great Britain. It also often temporarily housed juvenile inmates on their way to the nearby Point Puer reformatory. Unlike other penal colonies, Port Arthur was formed on the belief that it was possible to reform convicts through psychological punishment, trade training and religious education. To that end, Port Arthur functioned as a working industrial settlement supported by unpaid inmate labor. Prisoners who lived in the settlement all held jobs. While some collected timber, others worked as shipbuilders or shoemakers. The Port Arthur penal colony ultimately remained in operation until 1877.

As part of an effort to improve its image, Port Arthur was called Carnavon for a time before eventually returning to its original name. In the twentieth century, Port Arthur grew into a booming tourist destination. Approximately 250,000 tourists visit the area each year. The town is home to numerous historical sites and other interesting places to explore.

The Massacre and Gun Control Laws

The Port Arthur massacre was one of the worst mass killings in Australian history and the worst ever committed by a single person in modern Australia. It was a violent shooting spree carried out by a lone gunman who also took a hostage and allegedly set two fires during the incident. By the time the perpetrator was taken into custody, a total of thirty-five people were dead and twenty-three more were wounded.

The Port Arthur massacre was carried out by Martin Bryant, a twenty-eight-year-old man from the Hobart suburb of New Town. Bryant was intellectually disabled and known to occasionally exhibit unusual behavior. Having left school before graduating, he spent several years in the late 1980s and early 1990s working as a handyman for a lottery heiress named Helen Harvey. Harvey died in a 1992 car accident that some believe Bryant may have caused by abruptly grabbing the steering wheel. Bryant’s father died by suicide the following year. Bryant himself reportedly believed that his father’s depression was caused at least in part by a failed attempt to purchase a guesthouse in Port Arthur called the Seascape Cottage. Although Bryant never admitted as much, it is generally thought that his decision to carry out the massacre was tied to his father’s inability to acquire the Seascape.

On 28 April 1996, Bryant travelled to the Seascape and killed its two elderly owners. He then had lunch at a nearby café. After finishing his meal, he took a Colt AR-15 from a bag that he had been carrying and began firing on customers and staff at the restaurant. Twenty-two people were killed. Bryant then shot and killed several more people in the parking lot before driving off en route to a local gas station. Along the way, he abandoned his vehicle and stole another car after opening fire on its occupants while they were stopped at a toll booth. Once he arrived at the gas station, Bryant shot a woman to death and took a man hostage. Subsequently returning to the Seascape, Bryant engaged in an eighteen-hour standoff with police during which he set the guesthouse on fire. He is also believed to have set his car on fire at some point. He was ultimately apprehended when he attempted to flee the following morning. Authorities later discovered the body of the hostage and determined that he died sometime before Bryant set fire to the Seascape.

Bryant pled guilty to the charges brought against him following his capture. He was ultimately given thirty-five life sentences, one for each of the murders that he committed. Bryant also received additional time for several lesser charges.

Importantly, the dark cloud of the Port Arthur massacre was not without a silver lining. The senseless tragedy soon encouraged Australian legislators to enact more stringent gun control laws. These new measures were delivered in the form of the National Firearms Agreement, which introduced expansive licensing and registration procedures and a ban on all fully automatic and semiautomatic weapons sales. The Australian government also launched a gun buyback program that led to the surrender of approximately seven hundred thousand firearms.

Bibliography

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Calamur, Krishnadev. “Australia’s Lessons on Gun Control.” The Atlantic, 2 Oct. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/australia-gun-control/541710. Accessed 7 Dec. 2020.

Grimson, Matthew. “Port Arthur Massacre: The Shooting Spree That Changed Australia’s Gun Laws.” NBC News, 25 July 2015, www.nbcnews.com/news/world/port-arthur-massacre-shooting-spree-changed-australia-gun-laws-n396476. Accessed 7 Dec. 2020.

La Terra, Monique. “A Brief History of Port Arthur, Tasmania.” Culture Trip, 4 Sept. 2017, theculturetrip.com/pacific/australia/articles/a-brief-history-of-port-arthur-tasmania. Accessed 7 Dec. 2020.

Millar, Jake. “The Director of Snowtown Is Set to Make a Film about the Port Arthur Massacre.” GQ, 30 Nov. 2020, https://www.gq.com.au/entertainment/film-tv/the-director-of-snowtown-is-set-to-make-a-film-about-the-port-arthur-massacre/image-gallery/07e721294290e1358138524d141cec9e?pos=3. Accessed 7 Dec. 2020.

“Port Arthur Massacre.” National Museum Australia, 2020, www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/port-arthur-massacre. Accessed 7 Dec. 2020.

“35 Killed in Australia’s Port Arthur Massacre Mass Shooting.” History.com, 27 Apr. 2020, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/port-arthur-massacre-in-australia. Accessed 7 Dec. 2020.

Totaro, Paola and Robert Wainwright. “Port Arthur Massacre a Story That Must Be Told, Not Buried.” Sydney Morning Herald, 2 Dec. 2020, www.smh.com.au/culture/movies/port-arthur-massacre-a-story-that-must-be-told-not-buried-20201201-p56jgt.html. Accessed 7 Dec. 2020.