April 28 , 1996 was a day that Australians will never blank out . As this 2016articlefrom the Guardian , a British newspaper , details , that ’s when a 28 - yr - old gunman refer Martin Bryant entered a café in Port Arthur in southeast Tasmania , pulled asemi - robotlike riflewith a 30 - round magazine out of his old bag and start shoot at tourists and employees . He kill 12 citizenry in the first 15 seconds . The killer then go back to his elevator car , got a second semi - automatic rifle , and look for more victims . In a little more than 30 minute , he killed 35 people and wounded 23 . It was the bad mass violent death ever committed by a single person in Australia ’s history . Here are four eyewitness account of the putting to death from theAustralian Broadcasting Corporation .
A Swift Response
The Port Arthur mass shooting was the sort of horrific event that ’s been repeated over and over in the U.S. in late years , in places ranging from Columbine , Colorado to Lakeland , Florida . Australia , by contrast , has n’t had another such violent disorder . Many say the reason is that in the wake of the tragedy , Australia ’s res publica and federal governments enacted sweeping gun ascendence legislation . As detailed by Simon Chapman , an Emeritus Professor in Public Health from the University of Sydney , in this 2016 clause in The Conversation , the new laws include a full ban on semi - reflexive rifles and a redemption design , in which the government paid market place value to owners who turned in their banned guns . In increase , a home database of firearm was create .
Moreover , an Australian who wants to own a gun has to go through a tough screening procedure , in which they have to provide a grounds for want a gun , such as hunting vermin on a farm or belong to a quarry shooting club . Self - defense , which in the U.S. is considered aconstitutionally - protected right , is expressly excluded as a justification for gun ownership in Australia .
No More Mass Shootings
That ’s the kind of stringent regulation that gun control advocates in the U.S. might dream about . How well did it work in Australia in reducing gun violence ? Astudypublished by Chapman and co-worker in the July 19 , 2016 issue of Journal of the American Medical Association , find that in the 18 long time before the laws were passed , there were 13 plenty shootings in Australia , but none afterward , and the pace of piece death of all form declined as well , by an norm of 3 percent per twelvemonth from 1997 to 2013 . But it ’s not completely absolved whether it was gun control that made the dispute , since non - firearm homicides and suicides declined by an even peachy magnitude , the researchers concluded .
" This piss it hard to disentangle impacts of grease-gun jurisprudence from impact of other measures — such as national suicide prevention efforts — that were occurring around the same clock time , " Australian grease-gun researcherSamara McPhedranexplains in an electronic mail . She holds a doctor’s degree in psychology and is a senior research lad in the Violence Research and Prevention Program at Australia ’s Griffith University .
And in the U.S.?
yield the cacoethes and sulphuric acid that inflames the argumentation over gun in the U.S. , Americans might assume that enactinggun controlmust have take a heavily - fought battle in Australia . But surprisingly , McPhedran says that was n’t the case . Australian political leaders had been considering tougher national gun control police force for long time , and some of the elements of the internal police force — such as the tight prerequisite for gunman possession — were already in topographic point in some parts of the land .
Additionally , there was a strong public consensus in Australia in favour of torpedo restraint . " People were so shocked and horrified by what had happened at Port Arthur , and so wanted " something " to be done , that there was no significant opposition whatsoever , " McPhedran says . " Of course , this also meant there was a gravid deal of emotion but no literal debate or calm reflection — which is seldom conducive to developing really efficacious policies . "
But even if the U.S. Congress was capable to happen the political will to enact Australian - vogue gun control measures , how well would they work in the U.S. ? McPhedran , among others , is unbelieving . " If you conceive how many firearms are own in the U.S. , trying to translate an Australian - fashion prohibition / compensation program to the U.S. would work out to tens of millions of firearm , " she say .
to boot , McPhedran remark that gun registration in Australia has n’t been whole successful . Though there are about 3 million cross-file firearms , the number of unlicensed weapon system still in circulation is estimated to range between 1.5 million and 6 million . " So if you imagine judge to drift a system like that out in the U.S. , it is just unrealistic , " she says .
There ’s also the ethnic dividing line between the two res publica . As Australian journalist A. Odysseus Patrick pen in a Feb. 23 , 2018New York Times essay , Australians have a " profoundly dissimilar human relationship with weapon system . American love guns . We ’re scared of them . "
Even so , it ’s hard to ignore one fact : Australia has n’t had a mass shooting in 22 years , while in the U.S. we ’ve had dozens of them , according tothis list compile by Mother Jones(and this list does n’t include everyday , run - of - the - milling machinery U.S. gun violence ) . As Australian Capital Territory Chief Minister Andrew Barr late toldVox , he just shakes his head when he hears Americans speak about arming teachers , " because more guns is not the solution , it ’s few guns . "
