Port Arthur Massacre (Australia)
The Port Arthur massacre of 28 April 1996 was a killing spree in which 35 people were killed and 23 wounded, mainly at the historic Port Arthur prison colony, a popular tourist site in south-eastern Tasmania, Australia. Martin Bryant, a 28-year-old from New Town, a suburb of Hobart, eventually pleaded guilty to the crimes and was given 35 life sentences without possibility of parole. He is now imprisoned in the Wilfred Lopes Centre near Risdon Prison.
Port Arthur massacre remains one of the deadliest shootings worldwide committed by a single person. Gun control laws in Australia, which had been relatively lenient before the massacre, were reviewed and tightened significantly after the incident.
After the shootings, it emerged that the shooter, Martin Bryant, had significant intellectual disabilities.
Read more about Port Arthur Massacre (Australia): Background, 28 April 1996, Morning Events, Capture and Prosecution, Community and Government Reaction, Motivation, Aftermath and Analysis
Famous quotes containing the words port, arthur and/or massacre:
“When we think back to our forefathers, with their sedentary lives of forest-chopping, railroad-building, fortune-founding, their fox-hunting and Indian taming, their prancing about in the mazurka and the polka, with their coattails flying and their bustles bouncing, to say nothing of their all-day sessions with the port and straight bourbon,... we must realize that we are a nation, not of neurasthenics, but of sissies and slow-motion sports.”
—Robert Benchley (18891945)
“A dead martyr is just another corpse.”
—Leo V. Gordon, U.S. screenwriter, and Arthur Hiller. Major Craig (Rock Hudson)
“The bourgeoisie of the whole world, which looks complacently upon the wholesale massacre after the battle, is convulsed by horror at the desecration of brick and mortar.”
—Karl Marx (18181883)