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‘Port Arthur made me fear guns’, says survivor Anita Bingham

A survivor of the worst gun massacre in modern Australia history, still haunted by what she witnessed, has backed calls for a national firearms registry.

Hobart resident Anita Bingham, 43, was 17 and working at the Port Arthur tea rooms when Martin Bryant killed 35 people in April 1996. Picture: Matthew Newton
Hobart resident Anita Bingham, 43, was 17 and working at the Port Arthur tea rooms when Martin Bryant killed 35 people in April 1996. Picture: Matthew Newton

A survivor of the worst gun massacre in modern Australia history, still haunted by what she witnessed, has backed calls for a national firearms registry and says she has been saddened by the recent shooting of two Queensland police officers.

Anita Bingham was 17 and had just started working at the Frances Langford Tearooms near the Port Arthur historic site in southern Tasmania when Martin Bryant used a semiautomatic rifle to kill 35 people and injure 23.

Now 43 and suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, Ms Bingham said the introduction of a national registry was an important issue that needed to be addressed and that she was tired of hearing about shooting deaths.

“It’s important I think that it (a firearms registry) gets nationally recognised,” Ms Bingham said.

“It’s terrible what happened to those young policemen and the neighbour.”

The shooting deaths of Queensland police constables Rachel McCrow, 29, and Matthew Arnold, 26, at a remote property at Wieambilla, 290km northwest of Brisbane last Monday has renewed calls for the introduction of a national firearms registry.

One of the shooters, Nathaniel Train, is believed to have held a NSW gun licence, which may have not been known to the Queensland police officers when they entered the remote property.

A nationwide register was first recommended in the wake of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre by the state-federal National Firearms Agreement struck under then prime minister John Howard but was never set up.

Calls for a national firearms register after Queensland police shooting

Some 26 years after the massacre, Ms Bingham said she’s still haunted by what happened at Port Arthur and said she was weary of hearing about people being shot dead on the news.

“You don’t get up and go to work and expect something like that to happen at your workplace,” she said.

“It’s very frightening, it was very scary. I remember that day very clearly still.

“You just get a bit sick of hearing, especially on the news, about people being killed by them (guns).

“I just wish more could be done.”

Queensland cop shooters Nathaniel Train, Gareth Train and his wife Stacey were heavily armed and police are investigating whether one of the Trains made an anonymous tip to NSW Police to lure officers into an ambush at the property.

Just hours after the shooting Gareth and Stacey Train posted an online video in which they boasted of killing “these devils and demons”.

Gareth Train had previously posted that Port Arthur shooter Martin Bryant was the “perfect patsy”, that the shooting was a “false flag” operation and was a “government psy-op massacre”.

Ms Bingham said she felt for the police officers and wondered whether they wore protection vests as they entered the Trains’ property.

“Maybe they didn’t know what they were getting themselves into,” she said.

“I was wondering what was going through those people’s minds to do what they did at that time, I don’t really understand it.”

Ms Bingham said sometimes she avoided the news because it was too distressing.

“I don’t like guns really after what happened (at Port Arthur) and sometimes I don’t understand why some people have to have them,” she said.

“There’s always been a bit of a debate and an argument, especially with farmers.

“Some people say they should have them (guns) because of farming and things but I just don’t like what they can do in the wrong hands.”

Martin laughed as he pleaded guilty to 72 charges including murder and attempted murder and on November 22 in 1996 was handed 35 life sentences without parole.

The tragedy prompted swift reform on gun control from Mr Howard, who effectively outlawed semiautomatic rifles and oversaw the gun buyback scheme.

Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/port-arthur-made-me-fear-guns-says-survivor-anita-bingham/news-story/d05b5ab5937c6a7ac8f89e0031918fa0