Martin Bryant: ‘If (guns) weren’t advertised, it wouldn’t have happened’

THE Port Arthur massacre is a black stain on Australia’s history. But Bryant has confessed he wouldn’t have gone through with it if not for one thing.

MARTIN Bryant blamed the ease of buying guns for the worst massacre in Australian history.

In taped police interviews, never before seen outside of court, the mass murderer revealed how he obtained the high-powered weapons used in the horrific attack 20 years ago.

Bryant is serving 35 life sentences for the shooting deaths of 35 people and attempted murders of many more in Port Arthur in 1996.

In clips aired on Seven’s Sunday Night, Bryant told police if he couldn’t get the guns “it wouldn’t have happened”.

Arthur admires the gun he obtained without a licence during police interviews.

Bryant didn’t have a gun licence, but was free to purchase guns, including an AR15 semiautomatic assault rifle, his preferred weapon at the mass shooting, from a licenced arms dealer.

In a disturbing scene, Bryant asked to look through the weapon’s sight, affectionately calling it a “sweet little gun”, when it is presented to him by police.

He told police how he was never asked to produce a licence by local arms dealer Terry Hill, whose store was raided and closed down by authorities following the murders.

“I just said I had the cash on me, and he said ‘that’s all right’,” Bryant told detectives.

Bryant had also purchased a weapon he found advertised in The Mercury newspaper.

When asked if he blamed Mr Hill for selling him the gun, he said the paper was as much at fault as the dealer.

In sketches shown to police, Bryant showed how he practised shooting tin cans in bushland north of Port Arthur.

“I’m not blaming anyone. It wasn’t Terry Hill’s fault,” he said.

“I got one out of the paper, don’t forget. So you can blame the Mercury for the advertising.

“If they don’t advertise ‘em, it wouldn’t have happened.”

Bryant eventually pleaded guilty and will never be released from prison.

His horrific actions led then-Prime Minister John Howard to push for tough gun laws banning the ownership of the type of weapons he had used to end so many lives.

Mr Howard this week appeared on US television preaching the “incontestable” success of the strict laws on gun ownership introduced in 1996.