Argumentative Essay: The Issue Of The Port Arthur Massacre In Australia

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Nineteen year ago, on Sunday the 28th of April 1966, the largest gun massacre by a civilian - anywhere in the world - occurred on home soil, at the popular historic tourist site- Port Arthur, Tasmania. During the peak time lunch hour at Broad Arrow Café a lone figure entered, ordered and ate a big lunch, reached into his bag and withdrew two military-style semi-automatic rifles and started indiscriminately shooting, at staff and tourists. The range of guns used by the Port Arthur murderer- Martin Bryant, were designed for killing large numbers of people, and they delivered: within the first 15 seconds 17 shots had been fired, by the end of the rampage 35 people lay dead and 24 wounded. To this day the Port Arthur massacre remains one of the …show more content…

Despite the overwhelming impact of the Port Arthur killings, some States – particularly Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania – remained hesitant about a crackdown on gun laws. However after the poll rates showed that 85% of Australians were in favour of gun laws, Prime Minister John Howard made the move to set in stone the new nationwide gun reform. Proposals included: a ban on semi-automatic rifles and pump-action shotguns including the importation, ownership, sale, possession, manufacture or use, comprehensive firearm registration and gun owner licensee, a requirement that all gun licence applicants prove a “genuine reason” for owning a firearm (Self-defence did not count, secure firearm storage and the insurance of the following of the uniform national gun laws. A firearm “buyback” scheme was initiated, which allowed people to surrender the newly banned weapons, without any legal consequences and through this people would receive payment funded by a Medicare levy as compensation. The buyback purchased and destroyed nearly 1 million firearms, most of them alike the guns used in the massacre,

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