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Alpers, Philip and Zareh Ghazarian. 2019 ‘Australia's 'Perfect Storm' of Gun Control: From Policy Inertia to World Leader.’ Successful Public Policy: Lessons from Australia and New Zealand. J. Luetjens, M. Mintrom and P. 't Hart, Eds (Chapter 9), p. 208. Canberra: ANU Press. 1 January

Relevant contents

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Australia suffered 14 mass shootings,(1) which claimed 117 lives. This spate of public killings culminated on 28 April 1996, when a single 'pathetic social misfit' (the judge's words at his trial) killed 20 innocents with his first 29 bullets in the space of 90 seconds at Port Arthur, Tasmania.

The killer was empowered to achieve his final toll of 35 people dead and 18 seriously wounded by firing military-style semi-automatic rifles. Tasmania was one of the few remaining places in the Western world where an unlicensed individual could obtain such a weapon and had easily done so.

The massacre elicited a swift policy response by the Australian Government that would have a long-term impact.

ID: Q15230

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