OVER OUR DEAD BODIES Port Arthur and Australia’s fight for gun control Simon Chapman Copyright Originally published in 1998 by Pluto Press (Annandale, Australia) This reprint edition published in 2013 by SYDNEY UNIVERSITY PRESS © Simon Chapman 1998, 2013 © Sydney University Press 2013 Reproduction and Communication for other purposes Except as permitted under the Act, no part of this edition may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or communicated in any form or by any means without prior written permission. All requests for reproduction or communication should be made to Sydney University Press at the address below: Sydney University Press Fisher Library F03 University of Sydney NSW 2006 AUSTRALIA Email: [email protected] National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Chapman, Simon Title: Over our dead bodies : Port Arthur and Australia’s fight for gun control / Simon Chapman. ISBN: 9781743320310 (pbk.) Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Subjects: Gun control--Australia. Firearms ownership--Australia. Dewey Number: 363.330994 Cover design by Dushan Mrva-Montoya iv Contents Copyright iv Foreword to the reprint edition vi Preface and acknowledgments to the 1998 edition viii Introduction xii 1 The massacre 24 2 The case for fewer guns 57 3 The campaign for gun control 78 4 The main reforms 93 5 The gun lobby in Australia 121 6 The gun lobby’s arguments … and the responses 154 7 The future tasks for gun control 197 Other books by Simon Chapman 214 About the author 215 v Foreword to the reprint edition The firearm massacre at a primary school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut on 14 De- cember 2012 in which a lone gunman armed with three semi-automatic firearms killed 20 children, six teachers, his gun-owning mother and then himself, has stimulated unprecedented momentum for meaningful gun controls in the US. In 2006, with colleagues, I published a report1 that examined what had hap- pened to gun deaths in Australia since the implementation of comprehensive gun law reforms in Australia, following the Port Arthur massacre in April 1996, where 35 people were killed by a single gunman. On the day of the US massacre, I tweeted a link to that report, published in the British Medical Journal’s specialist journal Injury Prevention. In the six years since our paper had been published, it had been opened online 14,742 times. In the month of December 2012, it was opened a remarkable 84,542 times, quite easily the most opened paper I have ever published on any subject in 35 years of public health research. Americans might value reflection on Australia’s recent experience in reduc- ing deaths from firearms. The US has 13.7 times Australia’s population, 104 times its total firearm-caused deaths (32,163 in 2011 vs 236 in 2010), and 370 times Australia’s firearm homicide rate (11,101 in 2011 vs 30 in 2010). Importantly, in the 16 years since the law reforms, there have been no mass shootings. While the rate of firearm homicide was reducing by an average of 3% per year prior to the law reforms, this increased to 7.5% per year after the introduction of the new laws, although this failed to reach statistical signifi- cance because of the low power inherent in the small numbers involved. Our report showed that firearm-related suicides in males declined from 3.4 deaths per 100,000 person-years in 1997 to 1.3 per 100,000 person-years, representing 1 Chapman S, Alpers P, Agho K, Jones M. Australia’s 1996 gun law reforms: faster falls in firearm deaths, firearm suicides, and a decade without mass shootings. In- jury Prevention 2006, 12: 365–72. Available at: http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/ content/12/6/365.full?sid=4d930b0a-0f5d-484a-8ad4-b5839c7d10c5. vi Foreword to the reprint edition a decline of 59.9%. The rate of all other suicides declined from 19.9 deaths per 100,000 person-years in 1997 to 15.0 per 100,000 person-years in 2005, repre- senting a decline of 24.5%, and suggesting there was no substitution effect. The yearly change in firearm-related suicides in males was –8.7%, and the yearly change in other suicides was –4.1%, less than half the rate of fall in firearm sui- cide. Plainly, there is great interest in Australia’s experience in gun law reform.2 I wrote this book after the Port Arthur massacre, to provide a record of the events leading up to the law reforms, and the reaction to them. The book quickly went out of print and has ever since been very hard to obtain, with the publisher Pluto Press, since closing. I am very thankful to Sydney University Press for agreeing to republish the book in its original form, less the cartoons which were contained in the first edition. Unfortunately many of the links are no longer active (being old) and cannot be recovered. We recommend that those inclined to do so, try their luck finding them in the Wayback Machine.3 My editor Agata Mrva-Montoya, who worked on my previous book with Sydney University Press,4 turned this around in weeks. I am very grateful to her. Simon Chapman 5 February 2013 2 See ‘Australia – gun facts, figures and the law’ for specific information and updates: http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/cp/australia. 3 http://archive.org/web/web.php. 4 Chapman S, Barratt A, Stockler M. Let sleeping dogs lie? What men should know before being tested for prostate cancer. Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2010, http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/6835. vii Preface and acknowledgments to the 1998 edition This book was written for two main groups of readers. Foremost in my mind were Australians who were appalled by the Port Arthur gun massacre which killed 35 people and who want to understand more about the struggle to secure the historic reform of gun laws in the months after the incident. For millions, the massacre and the long overdue need for reform of gun laws became a major topic of conversation among family, friends and workmates. Tens of thousands of you demonstrated in support of the new laws, wrote letters to politicians and expressed yourselves in public media such as letters to newspapers and calls to radio stations. The wisdom and timing of many of these contributions were enor- mously powerful in advancing the debate and convincing politicians of the huge community support for gun control, and that further excuses for inaction were unacceptable. I wanted to pay a sort of homage to this support, which more than one commentator pointed out was a wonderful example of non-violent ‘people power’ influencing law reform. I have also written the book for people working to promote gun control in other countries. As will become apparent, I believe that it was not by mere serendipity that a massacre translated into major law reform. There are many lessons for others in how such tragedies can be catalysts for radical change. Yet law reform following massacres is not inevitable; rather, it requires the planned, strategic use of media and other forms of advocacy to convert anger and outrage into action. A prerequisite for this change would appear to be a sustained period of public advocacy for gun law reform that keys up communities to define soft gun laws as a blight on political courage and an affront to a safe community. Gun massacres force politicians to confront an electorate outraged at political spine- lessness in an area which demands nothing less than strong leadership. Much of this book is an attempt to distil some lessons out of the chaos that became the day to day of the lives of those pushing for gun law reform in the months after Port Arthur. Along with Rebecca Peters (NSW), Roland Browne (Tasmania), Helen Gad- sen (Queensland), Tim Costello (Victoria) and Charles Watson (NSW) I have viii Preface and acknowledgments to the 1998 edition been a spokesperson for the Coalition for Gun Control, a coalition of associations and individuals committed to tightening the regulation of guns in order to reduce gun violence in our community. The CGC became incorporated in 1995 in NSW and became a national group (thereafter, the National Coalition for Gun Control or NCGC) on 15 June 1996, when Rebecca was appointed national coordinator. Over 300 organisations from the fields of public health, medicine, law, domestic violence advocacy, women’s, religious, ethnic and community groups have sup- ported NCGC lobbying activities. While no longer active in the NCGC, between 1992 and 1996 I was one of its main members. Despite this huge support and the overwhelming weight of public opinion in favour of gun control, the NCGC today remains an organisation run on the good- will and dedication of volunteers, on the financial shoe-strings provided by public donations and on the occasional largesse of supportive organisations. Gun control has always been an immensely politicised issue. Despite an average of some 560 people who are killed by guns in Australia in each of the last six years, there has so far been no government with the courage or foresight to support the NCGC with little but pats on the back in times of mutual agreement. At one stage word was passed from the NSW Labor government that we would not be receiving funding because it was plain some of us were connected with the Liberal Party. We got the same news from the Federal (Liberal Coalition) government, being told that it was obvious the same people were Labor supporters. Frequently dur- ing the post–Port Arthur debate, people would contact us and make comments that implied we were a huge organisation with a fully equipped office, salaried staff and a lot of money in the bank.