I am an Australian, in fact a Tasmanian, which is the island state at the bottom of Australia, where Port Arthur is. I thought I could provide a local perspective on the time and the gun culture I see now here.
I was 13 when the massacre happened. I was out of the state on an extended family trip at the time so mostly remember the news and then the ongoing move to gun reform.
Some thoughts - my dad had and still has a gun, they have a small farm and it is needed sometimes to euthanize sheep etc. I was taught to shoot an air rifle at a young age for fun, though only occasionally and my dad didn’t hunt regularly or anything like that. He had to hand in his semi-automatic rifle and get a different fully manual one after the law changed (so you can’t shoot multiple rounds without reloading).
I remember the conversations adults were having about it, some people were intent on hiding guns and I’m sure many did. But the reality is most people could see it was the right thing to do - also many people had old guns around they didn’t use so it was just a great opportunity to get rid of them. There is ongoing amnesty allowing people to hand in guns at any time, no questions asked, so I am sure many that were initially hidden have now been handed in. It is also well publicized now that most of the time when a gun is used in a violent crime they are usually illegal ones that have been stolen often from farms is there is community pressure for gun safety. There are very few handguns here, people cannot keep them at home unless they are police etc, even recreational/sport club shooters have to keep their handguns way their club.
There are still people who believe the whole Port Arthur thing was a hoax to get the reform through, though I am not aware of any movement towards that before hand, just the usual conspiracy theories.
It was just such an horrific act/series of acts by a very unwell man (he killed 35 people, he is still in prison here) that it moved people to act immediately. Tasmania only had a population of around half a million at the time so there were many people who had personal connections to victims. I myself have worked with the mother of one many years later.
At the time many victims spoke out for the gun reform. I alway remember one man Walter Mikac, who lost his wife and two young daughters in the shooting, who spoke in the media repeatedly about it and I think his public sharing of the devastation made a huge difference convincing people that the gun reform was the right thing.
Also the government of the day moving the reform was our Liberal party, quite recently re-elected at the time. They are the more right wing traditionalist party - some would say Australian equivalent of the Republicans though still far left of them generally. I think that helped a lot, I don’t think it would have happened so quickly if the other major party was leading.
These days especially in rural areas people do still own and use guns for hobbies like deer shooting and controlling wildlife on farms and that can be quite an important social/cultural/identity thing for many. But the laws around the type of guns and the way they have to be kept - locked up in safes with ammunition locked separately - means there is virtually zero accidents and way fewer murders and suicides by gun since.
I appreciate you writing about this. Having lived mostly rurally since 2008, guns are a way of life for rural dwellers, even those I know who identify as progressive or radical. The more I think about it the guns are just an aspect of settler colonialism- the need to protect private land, land being owned not even a concept for any of the native american peoples. A gun to hunt I feel slightly ok with, but I also think that one can learn to hunt with other methods like a bow and arrow. The rural right's insistence that they need guns to be protected (protected from what exactly) is absurd, and that's who owns a lot of the guns in this country. Sigh.... I tried to find some data on stats on where school shooting have occurred, urban vs rural, but can't find anything showing a trend one way or another.
Mostly like you I hate guns. I hate our military. I hate how police now look like swat team members more and more and are used to police the poor and the homeless. We had a militarized removal of a homeless encampment in the nearby town, and it filled me with such fury. I hate the glorification of violence- the rise of Hollywood violence. The rise of violent video games, especially mostly played by boys, which as a boy mother scares the shit out of me. I also can't talk about guns without thinking about the and the American military industrial complex- if we could just defund our military and fund social services, life might be a bit more sane.
I had no idea about the Australian take, so that's wonderful to see. Of course there is a better way!!! oh and ending with an XTC song, which I haven't listened to them in years.
Thanks as always for your insightful writing.
I am an Australian, in fact a Tasmanian, which is the island state at the bottom of Australia, where Port Arthur is. I thought I could provide a local perspective on the time and the gun culture I see now here.
I was 13 when the massacre happened. I was out of the state on an extended family trip at the time so mostly remember the news and then the ongoing move to gun reform.
Some thoughts - my dad had and still has a gun, they have a small farm and it is needed sometimes to euthanize sheep etc. I was taught to shoot an air rifle at a young age for fun, though only occasionally and my dad didn’t hunt regularly or anything like that. He had to hand in his semi-automatic rifle and get a different fully manual one after the law changed (so you can’t shoot multiple rounds without reloading).
I remember the conversations adults were having about it, some people were intent on hiding guns and I’m sure many did. But the reality is most people could see it was the right thing to do - also many people had old guns around they didn’t use so it was just a great opportunity to get rid of them. There is ongoing amnesty allowing people to hand in guns at any time, no questions asked, so I am sure many that were initially hidden have now been handed in. It is also well publicized now that most of the time when a gun is used in a violent crime they are usually illegal ones that have been stolen often from farms is there is community pressure for gun safety. There are very few handguns here, people cannot keep them at home unless they are police etc, even recreational/sport club shooters have to keep their handguns way their club.
There are still people who believe the whole Port Arthur thing was a hoax to get the reform through, though I am not aware of any movement towards that before hand, just the usual conspiracy theories.
It was just such an horrific act/series of acts by a very unwell man (he killed 35 people, he is still in prison here) that it moved people to act immediately. Tasmania only had a population of around half a million at the time so there were many people who had personal connections to victims. I myself have worked with the mother of one many years later.
At the time many victims spoke out for the gun reform. I alway remember one man Walter Mikac, who lost his wife and two young daughters in the shooting, who spoke in the media repeatedly about it and I think his public sharing of the devastation made a huge difference convincing people that the gun reform was the right thing.
Also the government of the day moving the reform was our Liberal party, quite recently re-elected at the time. They are the more right wing traditionalist party - some would say Australian equivalent of the Republicans though still far left of them generally. I think that helped a lot, I don’t think it would have happened so quickly if the other major party was leading.
These days especially in rural areas people do still own and use guns for hobbies like deer shooting and controlling wildlife on farms and that can be quite an important social/cultural/identity thing for many. But the laws around the type of guns and the way they have to be kept - locked up in safes with ammunition locked separately - means there is virtually zero accidents and way fewer murders and suicides by gun since.
As always, thank you Amanda.
I appreciate you writing about this. Having lived mostly rurally since 2008, guns are a way of life for rural dwellers, even those I know who identify as progressive or radical. The more I think about it the guns are just an aspect of settler colonialism- the need to protect private land, land being owned not even a concept for any of the native american peoples. A gun to hunt I feel slightly ok with, but I also think that one can learn to hunt with other methods like a bow and arrow. The rural right's insistence that they need guns to be protected (protected from what exactly) is absurd, and that's who owns a lot of the guns in this country. Sigh.... I tried to find some data on stats on where school shooting have occurred, urban vs rural, but can't find anything showing a trend one way or another.
Mostly like you I hate guns. I hate our military. I hate how police now look like swat team members more and more and are used to police the poor and the homeless. We had a militarized removal of a homeless encampment in the nearby town, and it filled me with such fury. I hate the glorification of violence- the rise of Hollywood violence. The rise of violent video games, especially mostly played by boys, which as a boy mother scares the shit out of me. I also can't talk about guns without thinking about the and the American military industrial complex- if we could just defund our military and fund social services, life might be a bit more sane.
I had no idea about the Australian take, so that's wonderful to see. Of course there is a better way!!! oh and ending with an XTC song, which I haven't listened to them in years.