Umpqua Community College shooting: Why Australia has gun laws

AFTER yet another US shooting massacre, Australia has been lauded for its tough gun laws. We have them because of our worst mass murderer: Martin Bryant.

AS details emerge of the Oregon college gunman’s horrific rampage, US President Barack Obama has praised Australia for its tough stance on gun control.

Describing the US as the “only advanced country in the world that sees these mass shootings every few months”, Obama lauded our nation’s strict gun laws.

The government brought in these laws after Australia experienced what was for a time the worst mass shooting by a single killer in the world.

On April 28, 1996, Martin Bryant, killed 35 innocents and injured 23 others in a murderous rampage in Port Arthur, Tasmania.

Mass killer Martin Bryant pictured in Risdon Prison, Hobart. Picture: Gary Ramage

Within weeks of the Port Arthur massacre, the law was changed to ban rapid-fire weapons, implement a market-value buyback and open up a firearm amnesty on those guns.

600,000 newly illegal guns were bought by the government. Australia has not had a mass shooting since – using the international measure of five people or more being shot.

19 years after the the country changed its gun laws, few Australians would deny that their country is safer today as a consequence of gun control.

At 48, Martin Bryant is unrecognisable from the tall, slim blond man who committed one of the country’s most notorious crimes.

The country’s worst killer now is a grossly overweight loner who pays other prisoners with chocolate bars for attention and has violently attacked several jail workers.

Click here read the exclusive story that reveals his highly secret day-to-day existence behind the walls of Risdon Prison.

Originally published as Umpqua Community College shooting: Why Australia has gun laws