The Way of the Gun: A Bloody Journey Into the World of Firearms
by
Iain Overton
Published 15 Apr 2015
Obviously they all have a warped and broken view of the world to do what they do, but a diagnosed mental-health condition is an extremely poor predictive factor for profiling whether someone is likely to go on to become a mass shooter. A 2001 analysis of thirty-four American mass shooters found that only 23 per cent had a recorded history of psychiatric illness.21 Despite this, we still fixate on the mental oddities of these troubled men. We comment on the fact Martin Bryant, who carried out the Port Arthur massacre in Australia, was really into the soundtrack of the Lion King.22 We write how Adam Lanza, the young man who murdered so many children at Sandy Hook, carried a black briefcase with him, while other students had backpacks. We recall how Seung-Hui Cho, the warped killer of thirty-two at Virginia Tech, enjoyed taking photographs up the skirts of fellow students under the desks with his cell phone.23 But these are traits that, while odd, are far from proof of a mass murderer in the making.
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After the Hungerford and Dunblane massacres, in England and Scotland, respectively, the British government brought in stricter gun controls.74 When fourteen were killed in Aramoana, New Zealand, lifetime gun licences were replaced by ten-year ones. The massacre of sixteen in Erfurt in Germany in 2002 led to the screening of buyers under the age of twenty-five for psychological concerns.75 And in the mid 1990s in Australia, the Port Arthur massacre led the Conservative government to ban automatic and semi-automatic weapons as well as initiate a nationwide gun buyback scheme.76 These laws worked. Firearm homicides in Australia dropped 59 per cent between 1995 and 2006. In the eighteen years before the 1996 laws, there were thirteen gun massacres resulting in 102 deaths.
Confronting Gun Violence in America
by
Thomas Gabor
Published 12 Sep 2016
The fact that the reductions in gun-related violence and suicides were greatest in states with the highest buyback levels is also suggestive of success. Like the USA, Australia has a federal system of government, a gun culture, and an influential gun lobby. Australia’s reforms occurred due to determined national leadership and an outraged public following the Port Arthur massacre. The reluctance of American politicians to commit themselves fully to major gun law reform, combined with the deep divide in public opinion with regard to the relative importance of gun safety versus gun rights, have been significant impediments to reform. Recommendations • American leaders ought to familiarize themselves with the Australian experience, including the process of achieving reforms, the reforms achieved, and the outcome of gun laws passed since the 1996 carnage in Port Arthur. • Semiautomatic, assault-type weapons and high-capacity magazines that have little use other than to kill a large number of civilians should be banned in the USA.
Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation
by
Hannah Gadsby
Published 15 Mar 2022
“Have you seen this?” she said, pointing to the television. I was about to say that unless she had swapped the TV with an exact replica since yesterday then, yes, I had seen “this” when my eye and mind finally caught the drift of the breaking news coverage of what would become known as the Port Arthur Massacre. If you are curious about the specifics of this event, you should look it up. I don’t really want to porn it out for you here. I honestly find it quite painful to think about. In 1996, however, I thought about it a lot, and my thinking was as painless as it was obsessive. I thought about the young, golden-haired gunman, Martin Bryant, and the twenty-three people wounded as much as I did the thirty-five people who were killed.