tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/port-arthur-anniversary-26980/articlesPort Arthur anniversary – The Conversation2016-04-27T20:14:39Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/581422016-04-27T20:14:39Z2016-04-27T20:14:39ZAustralia’s gun numbers climb: men who own several buy more than ever before<p>The proud claim that Australia may have “solved the gun problem” might only be a temporary illusion. In recent years, arms dealers have imported more guns than ever before. And last year we crossed a symbolic threshold: for the first time in 20 years, Australia’s national arsenal of private guns is larger than it was before the Port Arthur massacre.</p>
<p>This increase must be seen in context. Australia’s population grew by five million in the same period, so per-capita firearm ownership remains 23% lower than it was before Port Arthur. </p>
<p>But after a <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/firearm_imports_number">16-year surge in gun buying</a>, can we hold onto the gains made by the laws introduced 20 years ago, after Martin Bryant’s rampage in Port Arthur killed 35 people?</p>
<h2>The story so far</h2>
<p>From the late 1970s, gun deaths in Australia have trended downwards. The risk of an Australian dying by gunshot remains <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_all_gun_deaths_per_100_000_people">less than half what it was</a> before Port Arthur. Research shows that murderers <a href="http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/12/6/365.full">did not move to other methods</a>. </p>
<p>But although Australia hasn’t seen a <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/documents/5902-alpers-australia-nz-mass-shootings-1987-2015">public mass shooting</a> since 1996, we have no shortage of firearm-related crime. Gun owners who know each other well – be they family members or gang members – have always been the ones to kill each other most frequently. </p>
<p>Then there’s the killer already in the room. About 80% of gun deaths in Australia <a href="http://bit.ly/1j9FkUo">have nothing to do with crime</a>. Instead, they’re suicides and unintentional shootings. </p>
<p>Although Australia destroyed rapid-fire weapons, most gun deaths take only one shot. We have yet to discover how swapping semi-automatic weapons for single-shot firearms – always the most common tools in fatal shootings – might affect overall gun deaths in the long term. In fact, that’s largely what the change has been – a gun swap. </p>
<p>The 1996 firearm laws were immediately followed by <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/documents/5343-australia-firearm-imports-1988-2012-abs">a buying spree</a>, as banned rapid-fire rifles and shotguns were replaced with freshly imported single-shot firearms. </p>
<p>By 1999, civilian gun imports had dropped to a record low. And most gun dealers closed their doors.</p>
<p>In the years that followed, gun-buying climbed steadily to new heights. By 2015, the arms trade had <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/documents/5344-australia-firearm-imports-1995-2012-customs">broken all previous records</a>. Last financial year Australia imported 104,000 firearms. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/documents/5337-australia-firearm-amnesty-buyback-and-destruction-totals">million guns destroyed</a> after Port Arthur have been replaced with 1,026,000 new ones. And the surge only shows upward momentum.</p>
<h2>More and more</h2>
<p>But here’s the thing: fewer Australians now own guns. Since 1988, the proportion of households with a firearm <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/proportion_of_households_with_firearms">fell by 75%</a>. </p>
<p>The same holds true <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/194/proportion_of_households_with_firearms">in the United States</a>, where researchers now see household gun ownership as the most reliable indicator of firearm distribution. </p>
<p>The reason? Those who already possess several guns have bought more. Until recently, the average Australian shooter owned three to five firearms. The same people now keep a larger collection, and a proportion of their guns <a href="http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/mr/1-20/16.html">continue to leak</a> into the illicit market.</p>
<p>Although rumours of large-scale gun smuggling to Australia are common, almost all such stories are evidence-free. Apart from an enterprising criminal band that <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/news/35906">ran a post office</a> to import Glock pistols, no interdiction agency can point to a sizeable batch of guns smuggled to Australia since the 1980s. </p>
<p>Certainly, there’s an “ant trade” in single guns and parts smuggled by post. But studies by the <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/citation/quotes/11621">Australian Crime Commission</a>, the <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/citation/quotes/11822">Institute of Criminology</a> and several others point to a much more common source.</p>
<p>When guns found in crime are traced back to their point of origin, <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/documents/5329-australia-firearm-smuggling-and-the-origin-of-crime-guns">experts agree</a> that most are found to have leaked from licensed gun owners and <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/citation/quotes/10681">rogue firearm dealers</a>. This is usually by way of the “<a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/citation/quotes/10682">grey market</a>”, a large pool of illicit firearms <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/citation/quotes/10663">created by Australian gun owners</a> who did not register their firearms after the laws changed in 1996.</p>
<p>Australians continue to speak as though the <a href="http://insidestory.org.au/the-upsides-of-the-buyback">1996-97 Australian Gun Buyback</a> was the key factor in the country’s national about-turn on guns. But several simultaneous, largely unheralded changes could have more effect in the long term.</p>
<p>In the 1996 <a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/CrimeAndCorruption/Firearms/Documents/1996%20National%20Firearms%20Agreement.pdf">National Firearms Agreement</a>, Australia installed a holistic suite of firearm-related public health interventions. These spanned from compulsory firearm seizure in domestic violence cases to the requirement to show “genuine reason” for owning each firearm (now rolled back in several states); universal firearm registration; enforced safe storage regulations; definitive denial of the “right to bear arms”; and many others. </p>
<h2>Dangerous backsliding</h2>
<p>By my own analysis of <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/about">350 jurisdictions</a> worldwide, Australia has in place the <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/australia">most comprehensive</a> and perhaps the most effective mesh of gun control measures on the planet.</p>
<p>As no law is effective until taken seriously, enforcement and resistance to backsliding are now key. Realising the potential of our toughened firearm legislation, police have led two decades of national attitude adjustment reminiscent of the 1980s turnaround on drink-driving enforcement. </p>
<p>These days, dedicated <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-30/27pro-active27-police-target-sydney-gun-crime/4490868">gun-crime</a> <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/police-act-to-stem-alarming-rise-in-illegal-firearms-and-shootings-20151105-gkrvyy.html">taskforces</a> target armed career criminals; firearm-related prosecutions have <a href="http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2015/11/10/australias-secret-gun-problem-exposed/">have soared</a>; police launch “<a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/south-australia/nationwide-blitz-on-illegal-firearms/story-fnii5yv4-1226648722332">nationwide blitzes</a>” on gun owners’ homes and seize <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SutherlandLAC/posts/770143513016623">thousands of firearms</a>; lethal weapons are removed from violence-prone or suicide-risk households; and actual sanctions are imposed on shooters who ignore safe storage regulations.</p>
<p>All this adds up to a new generation of police and political awareness.</p>
<p>But perhaps the most profound change has been in public attitude. At this 20th anniversary of the Port Arthur massacre, we’ve seen in media coverage a resurgence of public scepticism about the motives of self-interested groups seeking to wind back gun laws. </p>
<p>Dedicated, single-issue political potency remains theirs; surely we’re the only country in the world with two state political parties built and run by the gun lobby. </p>
<p>But in recent debates, we’ve seen little but reinforcement for the public health and safety measures forced on us two decades ago by the rampage of a solitary male, enabled with a couple of guns.</p>
<p><em>This article is part of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/port-arthur-anniversary">package marking the 20th anniversary</a> of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58142/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Alpers and his global project GunPolicy.org receive funding from the United Nations Trust Facility Supporting Cooperation on Arms Regulation. He does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article. He is a founding member of the Pacific Small Arms Action Group (<a href="http://www.psaag.org">www.psaag.org</a>), and has no other relevant affiliations.</span></em></p>For the first time in 20 years, Australia’s national arsenal of private guns is larger than it was before the Port Arthur massacre.Philip Alpers, Adjunct Associate Professor, Sydney School of Public Health, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/581392016-04-27T20:12:49Z2016-04-27T20:12:49ZForgetting Martin Bryant: what to remember when we talk about Port Arthur<p>Many Australians wish for nothing more than to forget Martin Bryant, the perpetrator of the Port Arthur massacre. Others insist that remembering both Bryant and the massacre is necessary if a proper reckoning is to be made with the events of April 28, 1996. </p>
<p>No matter where you stand, this is an important debate. How Bryant and, more importantly, the dead and survivors of the massacre are remembered is vital if we’re to appreciate the impact of it.</p>
<p>The scale of the atrocity, the enigma of the perpetrator, the mystique of the setting, the dramatic public consequences, and local protocols for referencing the event and the murderer have, in different measures, traumatised and gripped many in Australia and beyond.</p>
<p>They’ve also served a series of myths about the massacre and the murderer. Common to many renditions of the story is the idea that the national psyche and identity were violently altered by Bryant’s vicious rampage. Indeed, the event’s power over the nation is such, it is often claimed, that the story of that day demands constant retelling.</p>
<h2>Looking at a monster</h2>
<p>Consider the recent episode of Channel 7’s weekly current affairs program, Sunday Night. <a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/sunday-night/video/watch/31027398/martin-bryant-the-interview-part-1/#page1">Martin Bryant: the Interview</a> (March 6, 2016) opens with a dramatic montage of images and statements emphasising Bryant’s demonic nature. </p>
<p>Acknowledging “Australia was scarred forever by the horrors at Port Arthur 20 years ago,” the program promises “unseen” video footage of Bryant’s police interviews that supposedly provide insight into the murderer’s grip over the popular consciousness.</p>
<p>The health of the national psyche is again invoked to justify a planned film about the massacre. Of his proposed venture, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/while-not-exploitative-new-film-on-port-arthur-massacre-will-be-a-noholdsbarred-depiction-20160419-go9el1.html">Bryant — The Port Arthur Massacre</a>, producer Paul Moder is quoted as saying it will be “balanced and respectful” while nevertheless “hard hitting … very confronting and … horrific.” </p>
<p>Responding to the – understandable – lack of support from survivors of the massacre, <a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/31427496/port-arthur-massacre-film-to-go-ahead-despite-lack-of-support-from-survivors/">Moder apparently complains</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I am being warned off by those sympathetic to the desire by many to bury the event in Australia’s collective memory.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Every retelling of a catastrophic event includes certain elements while excluding others. But retelling the unfolding of the massacre with the focus strongly on Bryant and the “national psyche” risks sensationalising the murderer as the epitome of evil. Rendering the story as a gothic drama risks marginalising the voices of actual victims and survivors.</p>
<h2>A different view</h2>
<p>Other examples of retelling the Port Arthur massacre go some way to rectifying this. And, in doing so, they remind us that there’s no single story here.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, the ABC’s Australian Story series presented an episode on <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2015/s4418738.htm">Port Arthur</a>. It focused on stories of the suffering and resilience of people who were at the massacre, such as Carolyn Loughton. </p>
<p>Loughton was visiting Port Arthur with her 15-year-old daughter Sarah when Bryant attacked people in the Broad Arrow Café. Carolyn survived; Sarah was killed.</p>
<p>Bryant certainly features in the story. But the primary focus is stories of those who died and those who survived, witnessing the shooting and its aftermath, as well as those who helped them. Here the themes of solidarity and of community fashioned in response to the atrocity prevail.</p>
<p>In its retelling of the Port Arthur massacre, Australian Story downplays the significance of the event in the national psyche while accentuating the theme of “compassionate citizenship.” </p>
<p>It returns constantly to the reactions of those who found themselves under fire, those who attended to the dead and the wounded, and those who sought to change gun laws in the wake of the disaster. </p>
<p>Viewer attention is directed away from the menace and the mystery of Bryant. Instead, his victims are presented as active and central. And they invite a compassionate response.</p>
<h2>Understanding history</h2>
<p>The theme of compassionate citizenship is evident in other representations of the massacre. In works such as Port Arthur and Port Arthur triptych, artist <a href="http://www.rodneypople.com/">Rodney Pople</a> brings together images of the historic site’s convict and indigenous pasts, as well as acknowledging Martin Bryant and his actions. </p>
<p>Pople links the history of violence associated with Port Arthur to the European invasion of Tasmania. His paintings create a confronting sense of empathetic unsettlement in the viewer. </p>
<p>In their deployment of images of Bryant, Pople’s re-visionings of the Port Arthur massacre invite reflection on those other Australians, specifically Tasmanian Aboriginals, who’ve been subjected repeatedly to acts of indiscriminate and brutal violence.</p>
<p>The retelling of the Port Arthur massacre in Pople’s work and Australian Story seek to reframe what happened 20 years ago. But they are not without their limitations. Like other stories of what happened at Port Arthur 20 years ago, they remain partial and incomplete.</p>
<p>Still, they try to refashion the memory of the massacre and invite audiences to shift their focus from Bryant and idealistic notions of a national psyche or identity that prevail in other accounts. </p>
<p>They challenge us to renew our understanding of the impact of the event on the victims and survivors. And they place the story of Port Arthur within a broader context of the history of violence in Australia, and of our responses to it.</p>
<p><em>This article is part of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/port-arthur-anniversary">package marking the 20th anniversary</a> of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58139/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Clarke is affiliated with The Green Party.</span></em></p>How Bryant and, more importantly, the dead and survivors of the massacre are remembered is vital if we’re to appreciate the impact of it.Robert Clarke, Senior Lecturer in English, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/584312016-04-27T07:11:14Z2016-04-27T07:11:14ZThe arguments that carried Australia’s 1996 gun law reforms<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120155/original/image-20160426-1359-dre0r6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Guns don’t kill people, (bad and mad) people kill people' ... oh really?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alan Moir</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Former Prime Minister John Howard and all Australia’s states and territories united to introduce sweeping gun law reforms just 12 days after the then world’s worst civilian firearm massacre. When they did so, they acted on a platform of policy reforms that had nearly all been advocated for many years by gun control advocates.</p>
<p>The Port Arthur massacre was the 13th in Australia in 18 years where five or more victims (not including the perpetrator) had died (see Table 1 <a href="http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/12/6/365.full.pdf+html">here</a>). In the 20 years since there have been none.</p>
<p>John Howard had only been in office for 57 days when, on the day after the massacre, he declared his intention to push through the reforms. The reforms were announced by a national meeting of unanimous police ministers on May 10.</p>
<p>The police ministers did not have to call for any special filibustering inquiry or glacial expert report on what needed to be done. For years, advocates for gun control both in Australia and internationally had made sure that whenever gun violence was news and questions were being asked about what needed to be done in response, a set of policy reforms were repeatedly rolled out.</p>
<p>These were well captured in the main reforms:</p>
<ol>
<li>A ban on the importation, ownership, sale, resale, transfer, possession, manufacture or use of:</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li><p>all self-loading centre-fire rifles, whether military-style or not</p></li>
<li><p>all self-loading and pump action shotguns </p></li>
<li><p>all self-loading rim-fire rifles.</p></li>
</ul>
<ol>
<li><p>A compensatory “buyback” scheme funded through a temporary increase in the Medicare levy, whereby gun owners would be paid the market value of any prohibited guns they handed in.</p></li>
<li><p>The registration of all firearms as part of an integrated shooter licensing scheme, maintained through the computerised National Exchange of Police Information.</p></li>
<li><p>Shooter licensing based on a requirement to prove a “genuine reason” for owning a firearm. Genuine reason could include occupational uses such as stock and vermin control on farms; demonstrated membership of an authorised target shooting club; or hunting when the applicant could provide permission from a rural landowner. Significantly, the agreement explicitly ruled out “personal protection” or self-defence as a genuine reason to own a gun.</p></li>
<li><p>A licensing scheme based on five categories of firearms, minimum age of 18, and criteria for a “fit and proper person”. These criteria would include compulsory cancellation or refusal of licences to people who have been convicted for violence or subject to a domestic violence restraining order within the past five years.</p></li>
<li><p>New licence applicants would need to undertake an accredited training course in gun safety.</p></li>
<li><p>As well as a licence to own firearms, a separate permit would be required for each purchase of a gun. Permit applications would be subject to a 28-day waiting period to allow the licensee’s genuine reason to be checked.</p></li>
<li><p>Uniform and strict gun storage requirements, backed with heavy penalties.</p></li>
<li><p>Firearm sales could be conducted only by or through licensed firearms dealers, thus ending private and mail-order gun sales. Detailed records of all sales would have to be provided to police.</p></li>
<li><p>The sale of ammunition would be allowed only for firearms for which the purchaser was licensed and limits would be placed on the quantity of ammunition that may be purchased in a given period.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>In the years before the historic reforms, and in the months after their announcement when the gun lobby tried but failed to push back, we relentlessly used <a href="http://newsstore.fairfax.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&sy=nstore&kw=%22Simon+Chapman%22&pb=all_ffx&dt=selectRange&dr=entire&so=relevance&sf=author&rc=10&rm=200&sp=nrm&clsPage=1&docID=news960613_0068_3676">these arguments</a>:</p>
<h2>1. Semi-automatic weapons are frightening killing machines</h2>
<p>Front and centre of the reforms was the outlawing of citizen access to semi-automatic rifles and pump action shotguns. Fully automatic weapons <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F09xFM0wmPI">like this</a> had long been banned in Australia. </p>
<p>When someone plans to as kill many people as quickly as possible, today they tend to use bombs. But they certainly don’t choose a broken bottle, a baseball bat, a knife or a machete, means often raised by outraged shooters. They also don’t choose a single shot or bolt action rifle. They prefer to carry a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F8Z5ooMZpY">semi-automatic</a> firearm that allows rapid firing, fitted with a large magazine capacity, to minimise opportunities for them to be shot or overpowered during reloading.</p>
<p>Australians were revolted by the idea that military-style weapons could be easily obtained by malevolent people. A referendum question added to the ballot paper at the 1995 local government election in North Sydney before Port Arthur tellingly saw <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCplO7bzpTs&index=9&list=PLx_XVT38LmUbpHqU1Q5Qh99PEmdpptcEv">93.1%</a> vote in favour of gun law reform.</p>
<h2>2. ‘Guns don’t kill people, (bad and mad) people kill people’ … oh really?</h2>
<p>The seductive simplicity of the National Rifle Association mantra got a good workout in Australia. It carried the subtext that gun control should be only about identifying and controlling people who anyone with common sense would know was likely to be a problem. The task should be one for doctors, police and social workers who should do their job and identify and report all those likely to shoot people. Easy as that.</p>
<p>But all of these front line groups were united in pointing out that most people who committed gun violence had no criminal or <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-powers/blaming-gun-violence-on-t_b_8265398.html">psychiatric record</a>. Most were hitherto “law abiding shooters” until they shot or threatened people. Alan Moir’s cartoon in the Sydney Morning Herald (the lead image above) captured this perfectly. Even Martin Bryant, the Port Arthur killer, was known in Hobart to be just very “strange”. </p>
<p>We also pointed out that guns were ultra-lethal. There was simply no comparing the carnage of a person running amok with a semi-automatic gun and another with a knife.</p>
<h2>Gun registration</h2>
<p>Selling the virtues of “<a href="http://newsstore.fairfax.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&sy=nstore&kw=%22Simon+Chapman%22&pb=all_ffx&dt=selectRange&dr=entire&so=relevance&sf=author&rc=10&rm=200&sp=nrm&clsPage=1&docID=news950730_0022_2389">registration</a>” was always going to be hard work. But on we plugged. Most people associated the word in those days with dull bureaucracy and a dreary hour at the motor registry that they would never get back. </p>
<p>One day during a TV interview in 1995, we said as we always did “We register cars. We register boats”. But this time we added “We even register dogs. So what’s the problem in registering guns?” It was the perfect sound bite. </p>
<p>The next day a senior police official repeated the very same line on national television. From that point on, the air seemed to go right out of the gun lobby’s tires on that one.</p>
<h2>An insult to law abiding citizens?</h2>
<p>Gun lobbyists often went apoplectic at the implication that they should ever be considered a danger to the community. Most of course would not. It was always a tiny number of dangerous “others” (criminals and the deranged) who were the problem (see above). </p>
<p>In an issue of the gun magazine Australian Gun Sports, a statement signed by John Tingle and 11 other gun lobbyists said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>there are almost 1.8 million licensed firearm owners in Australia … and 99.9% of them never broke the law. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>By this admission, there were 1,800 people we needed to be very worried about.</p>
<p>They also invoked sentimental narratives about soon-to-be-banned firearms that had been in their families for generations, painting Howard and his lot as being the equivalent of heirloom vandals.</p>
<p>We sought to counter these arguments by pointing to the understanding that every reasonable person has over other “treat with suspicion” actions where authorities regard us all as potential offenders in the effort to reduce danger. </p>
<p>We argued by analogy that we were not offended by being assumed to be a potential terrorist by having to go through airport security, a drink-driver by being pulled over for random breath testing, or a thief at bag inspection at supermarkets.</p>
<h2>More guns make communities safer through deterrence</h2>
<p>This argument was typically accompanied by valorous gun lobby anecdotes about men who had protected their families from murderous and violent intruders in home invasions. Here’s a visiting <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zit0O9V35Ew&list=PLx_XVT38LmUbpHqU1Q5Qh99PEmdpptcEv&index=10">National Rifle Association president</a> giving it his best shot. If far more people were armed, these miscreants would think twice, apparently. </p>
<p>This argument was easily sent packing by reminding everyone of the daily gun carnage <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States">reports</a> in the news about US gun violence: a nation which is the apotheosis of an armed society. As <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGZEBjzkZMg">Sam Kekovich</a> might have said, “You know it makes sense”.</p>
<h2>Frothing gun advocates</h2>
<p>The Coalition for Gun Control had spokespeople from domestic violence prevention, health, medicine, psychiatry, law, the church and most importantly, the loved ones of those who had been shot. </p>
<p>We were often asked by journalists about who they should speak to on “the other side”. There was quite a selection to choose from, with Queensland providing the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaFCBF8Cmpc&list=PLx_XVT38LmUbpHqU1Q5Qh99PEmdpptcEv&index=5">best talent</a>. The frothing Ian McNiven who infamously said “The only currency that you can purchase freedom back with is blood” and gun dealer Ron Owen who called for an end to the “homosexual Gestapo” responsible for the new laws were hard to go past.</p>
<p>These and other regular ambassadors for opposing the new laws were immensely effective in galvanising public and political opinion even more strongly in support of the laws.</p>
<p>Australia today is the envy of many nations struggling with out-of-control gun violence. John Howard’s leadership was nothing but magnificent. </p>
<p><em>Simon’s (free) 1997 book Over our dead bodies: Port Arthur and Australia’s Fight for Gun Control (reprinted in 2013) is <a href="http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au//bitstream/2123/8938/1/Over-our-dead-bodies_Chapman.pdf">here</a></em></p>
<p><em>A series of news videos on the Coalition’s media advocacy before and after the Port Arthur massacre are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx_XVT38LmUbpHqU1Q5Qh99PEmdpptcEv">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58431/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Chapman was co-convenor with Rebecca Peters of the Coalition for Gun Control from 1992-97. The Coalition won the 1996 Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s Community Human Rights award.</span></em></p>Former Prime Minister John Howard and all Australia’s states and territories united to introduce sweeping gun law reforms just 12 days after the then world’s worst civilian firearm massacre. When they…Simon Chapman, Emeritus Professor in Public Health, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/581342016-04-26T20:13:57Z2016-04-26T20:13:57ZAustralia’s gun laws save lives – but are we now going backwards?<p>Gun violence has <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_all_gun_deaths_per_100_000_people">halved in Australia</a> since laws were changed under the <a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/CrimeAndCorruption/Firearms/Documents/1996%20National%20Firearms%20Agreement.pdf">National Firearms Agreement</a> adopted in the wake of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australia)">1996 Port Arthur massacre</a>.</p>
<p>Before the killing of 35 people by 28-year-old Martin Bryant at Port Arthur in Tasmania, each state and territory had different gun laws. Western Australia had the strongest laws and lowest rates of gun violence; Queensland had the weakest laws and gun violence was high. </p>
<p>In 1987, five people in the Northern Territory and Western Australia were killed because Queensland’s laws allowed the sale of assault rifles. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Schwab">German tourist Joseph Schwab</a>, named the Kimberley Killer by the press, drove across state borders for his killing spree.</p>
<h2>Holes in old laws</h2>
<p>Despite Australia’s patchwork of laws, no state was as bad as the free-for-all prevailing in most of the United States. All Australian jurisdictions at least required someone wanting to buy a gun to obtain a licence. </p>
<p>As well as a criminal background check, the licence application process asked for a “good reason” for possessing firearms. The provided list of possible reasons did not include self-defence. </p>
<p>Handguns (revolvers and pistols) had to be registered, enabling police to trace them back to their last legal owner. These guns were generally subject to stricter regulation than rifles and shotguns, and only about 5% of guns in Australia were handguns.</p>
<p>Still, by 1996, every Australian jurisdiction had yawning gaps in their gun laws. </p>
<p>In most jurisdictions, for instance, the “good reason” cited when applying for a rifle or shotgun licence didn’t require proof. Someone who wanted a gun for reasons such as impressing friends, frightening an ex-girlfriend, or self-defence, simply had to tick “hunting” on the application form. </p>
<p>This was what 33-year-old Wade Frankum, the perpetrator of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strathfield_massacre">1991 Strathfield massacre</a>, did even though he was not known ever to hunt and told friends he’d bought the assault weapon for self-protection. He killed eight people (including himself) and wounded six in a ten-minute shooting spree at Strathfield Plaza. </p>
<p>The perpetrators of both the 1987 massacres at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoddle_Street_massacre">Hoddle Street</a> (where 19-year-old Julian Knight killed seven people and injured 19 others) and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Street_massacre">Queen Street</a> (when 22-year-old Frank Vitkovic killed nine people, including himself, and injured five) did the same. </p>
<p>Only Western Australia required proof of reason for all guns.</p>
<h2>Problems with the patchwork</h2>
<p>Another problem with Australian laws was that semi-automatic rifles and shotguns were permitted to some degree in all jurisdictions, with variations based on design features and magazine capacity. </p>
<p>The ACT prohibited “military-style” weapons in 1991. In Western Australia centrefire semi-automatics that could hold more than eight rounds of ammunition had been banned since 1973.</p>
<p>But Queensland and Tasmania treated rapid-fire guns no more restrictively than a single-shot .22 rifle, thus permitting the Port Arthur killer to acquire his assault weapons.</p>
<p>Rifles and shotguns were required to be registered in most jurisdictions, but not in New South Wales, Queensland or Tasmania. This loophole favoured gun traffickers and other people wishing to evade the law, because a clean-skin purchaser could buy and pass on weapons without a record being made. </p>
<p>The absence of registration also made it extremely difficult for police to remove guns from people who became disqualified, whether by conviction for a crime or becoming subject to a domestic violence restraining order. The law said these people couldn’t have firearms – but without any record of ownership, the police didn’t know whether they did.</p>
<p>This was demonstrated by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Coast_massacre">1992 Central Coast massacre</a>. Police had earlier searched 45-year-old Malcolm Baker’s house and seized several guns, but they had no idea how many they ought to be looking for. Baker used a gun they hadn’t found to kill his ex-girlfriend and five other people, and injure another. </p>
<p>In 1996, NSW was the only state that barred gun possession for people who’d committed domestic violence in the previous ten years. Most other jurisdictions prohibited possession while a restraining order was in place. But once the order had expired, past violence was just one factor for police to take into account when deciding on a gun licence application. </p>
<p>In Tasmania, even a current restraining order was simply a factor to take into account – rather than grounds for disqualification. </p>
<h2>Dangers of complacency</h2>
<p>The National Firearms Agreement dramatically raised standards by imposing minimum requirements drawing on the best elements in the existing laws and on the recommendations of a series of expert inquiries, including the <a href="http://www.aic.gov.au/crime_community/crimeprevention/ncv.html">National Committee on Violence</a>. </p>
<p>The buyback of semi-automatics initially removed 640,000 guns from circulation, rising to more than a million with <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/documents/5337-australia-firearm-amnesty-buyback-and-destruction-totals">subsequent state, territory and national gun amnesties</a>.</p>
<p>It was the most comprehensive reform of firearm laws anywhere in the world. So much so that, 20 years after Port Arthur, many people think we no longer have to worry about gun violence. </p>
<p>While progress has been made, such complacency jeopardises public safety. </p>
<p>The pro-gun lobby has succeeded in <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/former-prime-minister-john-howard-slams-erosion-of-gun-control-laws-20150908-gjhqhd.html">watering down the laws in several states</a>. Weakening the rules on pistols so that unlicensed shooters can walk into a club and shoot without any waiting period for background checks has resulted in <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/retreat-on-gun-laws-destroyed-my-family-20140427-37c6k.html">at least one homicide in NSW</a>. </p>
<p>And the post-Port Arthur ban on rapid-fire weapons is under threat from <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-10/decision-on-adler-shotgun-ban-still-under-review/7311912">the push to legalise the Adler A110 shotgun</a>. While it is not technically semi-automatic, it can still fire eight rounds in as many seconds. </p>
<p>This is a dangerous trend for a country that has some of the best gun laws in the world. Guns are designed for the purpose of killing. We must jealously guard our success, not only to honour the Port Arthur victims, but also to prevent future deaths, injuries and trauma caused by these lethal implements.</p>
<p><em>This article is part of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/port-arthur-anniversary">package marking the 20th anniversary</a> of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58134/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Peters was formerly coordinator for the National Coalition for Gun Control.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Cunneen receives funding from the Australian Research Council competitive research grants scheme. </span></em></p>After the Port Arthur massacre, Australia had the most comprehensive reform of firearm laws anywhere in the world. But a creeping complacency now jeopardises public safety.Rebecca Peters, Research Student in Disabiity, University of SydneyChris Cunneen, Professor of Criminology, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/569932016-04-26T20:12:34Z2016-04-26T20:12:34ZFrom trauma to tourism and back again: Port Arthur’s history of ‘dark tourism’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119600/original/image-20160421-8017-vfr0e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The tragedy that unfolded 20 years ago added another layer of horror to a site already scarred by atrocity.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/khirol/4857067302/">Khirol Amir/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 20th anniversary of the massacre at Port Arthur again raises pressing questions - for surviving victims, their families and the Australian community more broadly – about ways of remembering the tragedy. </p>
<p>The relationship between trauma, tourism, commemoration and the nature of the place itself is a complicated one.</p>
<p>From the time it was established, the settlement at <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Port_Arthur_a_place_of_misery.html?id=alJLAAAAMAAJ">Port Arthur was associated with trauma</a>. It was meant to be.</p>
<p>The isolated prison, housing the worst convicts, was intended to instil fear to deter others. And the authorities played up the horror of punishment there. </p>
<p>Here convicts – already languishing as far from their homes as possible – were now subjected to unknown terrors in an alien wilderness. Though the actual administration was relatively “enlightened”, the image was unrelentingly negative.</p>
<p>It was reinforced by <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=56pFrO70zIUC">sensationalist campaigns against transportation</a>, and later by Marcus Clarke’s great sprawling novel, <a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/clarke/marcus/c59f/index.html">For the Term of His Natural Life</a>. </p>
<p>Everyone, it seemed, had an interest in playing up the horror.</p>
<h2>The full circle</h2>
<p>In 1877, the prison was closed. The government sought to obliterate its dark history and the shame of a convict past by changing the township’s name to Carnarvon. And by selling off the prison buildings on condition they were demolished. </p>
<p>Yet almost immediately tourists began to flock to the place, <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Making_crime_pay.html?id=W90RAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">creating an important local industry</a>. Souvenirs, guidebooks and postcards appeared; convict buildings were turned into guesthouses. </p>
<p>Fishing and hunting were popular but many tourists were drawn by morbid curiosity and a taste for the macabre. </p>
<p>Those early tourists could be a raucous mob. <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13645145.2015.1136094#.Vx7WJpN971I">Reports spoke of</a> “merry crowds” who danced in the mess rooms; pilfered “relics”; enjoyed the “thrill” of being shut up in a cell; and shrieked at the tales of horror told by the guides.</p>
<p>Some were ex-convicts: one would, for an extra shilling, remove his shirt and display the scars left by the lash. </p>
<p>Some tourists might reflect on the past’s brutality or British perfidy, but generally, a good time was had by all. The violence and gruesomeness were an entertainment.</p>
<p>The horror was in stark contrast to the landscape itself. Though at first seen as gloomy, alien and oppressive, the natural setting soon came to be regarded as romantically wild, awe-inspiring and picturesque. </p>
<p>Tastes were changing. As romanticism seeped into popular consciousness, the idea of wilderness took on new meaning, <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Tasmanian_Visions.html?id=uAjAPAAACAAJ">something to be sought out rather than avoided</a>. </p>
<p>The site’s neo-Gothic church, badly damaged by fire and covered with ivy, came to be seen as a romantically picturesque ruin. </p>
<p>Visitors drew attention to the irony of somewhere so beautiful being the scene of horror. Trauma amid beauty would become a common theme, revisited following the events of 1996. </p>
<h2>A fine balance</h2>
<p>Successive governments <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10314619508595988?journalCode=rahs20">could not ignore the fact</a> that Port Arthur was a money-spinner. In 1916, the site received some minimal protection. And, in 1928, the name was changed back to Port Arthur – Carnarvon had never caught on. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119599/original/image-20160421-8007-la306z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119599/original/image-20160421-8007-la306z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119599/original/image-20160421-8007-la306z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119599/original/image-20160421-8007-la306z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119599/original/image-20160421-8007-la306z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119599/original/image-20160421-8007-la306z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119599/original/image-20160421-8007-la306z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Port Arthur’s neo-Gothic church came to be seen as a romantically picturesque ruin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/giskard/283466571/">A + T/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By 1937, the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13645145.2015.1136094">Tasmanian treasurer commended Port Arthur</a> as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Stone Henge of Australia and one of the greatest tourist assets which this state possesses. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A more middlebrow and respectable class of tourist began to take an interest, admiring the site’s “Englishness” and the beauty of its historic ruins. </p>
<p>As <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/1438259">one visitor put it in 1918</a>, “bitter memories are fading into romantic interest”: the “beautiful workmanship” of the carved stone conjured up an English monastery rather than an Australian gaol. </p>
<p>A new management authority in 1987 treated the convict past with more sensitivity and respect, contrasting with some of the tackier commercial exploitation. But it still introduced a ghost tour that, on <a href="http://www.viator.com/tours/Tasmania/Port-Arthur-Ghost-Tour/d124-5774PAGT">Viator’s tourism website</a>, promises “ghoulish stories”, “terrifying tales”, “harrowing history” and a generally “spine-chilling” and “spooky” experience. </p>
<p>The melancholy and reflective were still jostled by people having a good time. For some reason, convict suffering is fun.</p>
<h2>Dark tourism</h2>
<p>This touristic enjoyment of trauma poses a problem. </p>
<p>At places as diverse as <a href="http://auschwitz.org/en/">Auschwitz</a>, Ghana’s “<a href="http://theculturetrip.com/africa/ghana/articles/ghana-s-slave-castles-the-shocking-story-of-the-ghanaian-cape-coast/">slave castles</a>”, the <a href="http://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/#gs.0D6fHCc">Tower of London</a>, <a href="http://www.gallipoli.gov.au/">Gallipoli</a> and <a href="http://treatyrepublic.net/content/history-australian-aboriginal-massacres">Aboriginal massacre sites</a>, this “dark tourism” is an important way of respecting the memory of past atrocity. </p>
<p>But often the response can verge on voyeurism and emotional indulgence; melancholy, pity and sorrow can be perversely pleasurable emotions. </p>
<p>What marks out <em>convict</em> tourism is the way that, while some tourists are moved, others are simply entertained. This lies at the core of the dilemma facing Port Arthur managers on the 20th anniversary of the massacre.</p>
<p>The tragedy that unfolded 20 years ago added another layer of horror to a site already scarred by atrocity, but one where heartbreak jostled awkwardly with holiday making. </p>
<p>The management’s immediate response was purposely low key, with a sensitively understated memorial to the massacre – off the beaten tourist track. It allowed tourists and workers to <a href="http://www.academia.edu/10271524/The_Port_Arthur_Massacre_Tragedy_and_Public_Memory_in_Australia">quietly remember the dead</a>, who were also tourists and workers.</p>
<p>The switch to a more public commemoration for the 20th anniversary shows the dilemma remains: how to commemorate Port Arthur as a tourist site. </p>
<p>In truth, the best memorial to the victims of Martin Bryant, his Colt AR-15 and his FN FAL, will always be effective gun control.</p>
<p><em>This article is part of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/port-arthur-anniversary">package marking the 20th anniversary</a> of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56993/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard White receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>The 20th anniversary of the massacre at Port Arthur again raises pressing questions about ways of remembering the tragedy.Richard White, Affiliate Associate Professor of History, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.