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Murders occur overwhelmingly in dense urban areas, many with tough anti-gun restrictions, and far less in suburban and rural areas where firearm ownership is more common, according to a national study of killings.
“This research shows that murders in the U.S. are highly concentrated in tiny areas in the U.S. and that they are becoming even more concentrated in recent years,” said the report from John R. Lott’s Crime Prevention Research Center.
The new report, shared with Secrets, showed that big cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., are murder centers and that even in those cities, the areas where killings occur are growing more concentrated.
Lott’s report is all numbers and little editorial. It describes a nation that is seen on TV every night: shootings are common in cities.
Graphic courtesy Crime Prevention Research Center
“The worst 1% of counties (the worst 31 counties) have 21% of the population and 42% of the murders. The worst 2% of counties (62 counties) contain 31% of the population and 56% of the murders. The worst 5% of counties contain 47% of the population and account for 73% of murders. But even within those counties, the murders are very heavily concentrated in small areas,” he wrote of the 2020 numbers.
Comparing years, he said that the concentration of murder in tiny areas of cities and counties has surged since 2010.
The murder map in the report looks like the map of the concentration of Democratic voters in the nation.
His top 10 list of murder areas included Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, Philadelphia, New York City, Detroit, Baltimore, Dallas, Miami, and Washington.
“Murder isn’t a nationwide problem,” Lott’s study said. “It’s a problem in a small set of urban areas and even in those counties murders are concentrated in small areas inside them, and any solution must reduce those murders,” it added.
Lott’s crime center often writes about gun use and crime, and he included a note that challenges conventional thinking that the surge in legal gun ownership has led to more killings.
“According to a 2021 PEW Research Center survey, the household gun ownership rate in rural areas was 79% higher than in urban areas. Suburban households are 37.9% more likely to own guns than urban households. Despite lower gun ownership, urban areas experience much higher murder rates. One should not put much weight on this purely ‘cross-sectional’ evidence over one point in time, and many factors determine murder rates. However, it is still interesting to note that so much of the country has both very high gun ownership rates and zero murders,” he said.
That may very well be the case when it comes to the man accused of murdering Riverside County Sheriff’s Deputy Isaac Cordero last week. William Shae McKay had a criminal history dating back more than 20 years; including a 2021 conviction on charges of false imprisonment, receiving stolen property and evading police officers. Unbelievably, McKay was still allowed to post bail and leave jail after that conviction in November of 2021; a decision that local law enforcement believe had a direct link to Cordero’s murder a little more than a year later.
He was facing a third-strike sentence of 25 years to life in prison, but his attorneys asked for a new trial and that one of his strikes be dismissed.
McKay’s bail was reduced from $950,000 to $500,000 while his case was pending, and he was released on bail in March. In October, a warrant was issued for his arrest when McKay failed to make a court appearance. The trial judge in his case was Cara D. Hutson.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson said the justice system had failed Deputy Cordero.
In a news release, Anderson noted his office opposed the bail reduction as well as the motion to dismiss a prior strike.
“Our office upheld our oath of pursuing justice by prosecuting convicted felon McKay in November of 2021, however a failure in the process to separate McKay from society and hold him accountable for his crimes has resulted in the tragic loss of a law enforcement deputy,” Anderson said.
Cordero’s uncle, Carlos Padilla, echoed his own frustration with the system and Judge Hutson.
“The law that he swore to uphold took his life,” Padilla said. “They said ‘You’re being dropped in the battlefield,’ and then they abandoned him. It’s so heart-wrenching that the same people we allow to be in office can do something like this.”
Hutson, a Democrat, was appointed to the San Bernardino County Superior Court bench in 2007 by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Before that, she worked as a deputy district attorney from 1994 until her appointment. She was last elected in June 2022 when she ran unopposed.
Serious crimes that could have resulted in decades behind bars, but thanks to the judge’s largesse, McKay was able to post bail post-conviction and stroll out of custody free as a bird.
California lawmakers are set to resume their attacks on legal gun owners in just a few short days, with restricting the right to carry one of their top priorities for the new year. Ensuring that violent offenders like McKay stay behind bars, on the other hand, isn’t much of a concern for the politicians intent on carving up our Second Amendment rights into a never-ending series of non-violent possessory crimes. In the twisted worldview of the anti-gun left, guys like McKay are always deserving of another chance, while peaceable gun owners are considered a threat until or unless they’re disarmed.
Alec Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed will face criminal charges for the October 21, 2021 fatal shooting of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, the Santa Fe District Attorney said this morning.
Close to 16 months after Baldwin took the life of Hutchins and wounded the movie’s director Joel Souza with a loaded gun on the set of indie western Rust, New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies today has finally unveiled her decision as to who should be charged and not charged in the tragic incident.
“After a thorough review of the evidence and the laws of the state of New Mexico, I have determined that there is sufficient evidence to file criminal charges against Alec Baldwin and other members of the Rust film crew,” Carmack-Altwies said Thursday. “On my watch, no one is above the law, and everyone deserves justice.”
In charges set to be formally filed by the end of the month, Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed will each be charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter in Hutchins’ death.
Heading towards a hearing before a state judge and then a jury trial, the first charge is a fourth-degree felony with sentencing of up to 18 months in jail and a $5,000 fine. The second charge, which is formally an involuntary manslaughter in the commission of a lawful act charge, is also a fourth-degree felony punishable by up to 18 months in jail and up to a $5000 fine. However, the second charge additionally carries a firearm enhancement. That gives the offense a punishing mandatory five years behind bars if Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed are found guilty.
Long a key figure in the events surrounding Hutchins’ death, Rust assistant director David Halls reached a plea agreement with prosecutors for the charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon. The industry vet faces a suspended sentence and six months of probation, the D.A.’s office said today. While Baldwin has in the past vowed to fight any charges, Halls’ plea deal and the cooperation he likely has had with prosecutors could become a major factor for the actor going forward.
“If any one of these three people—Alec Baldwin, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed or David Halls—had done their job, Halyna Hutchins would be alive today. It’s that simple,” stated Andrea Reeb, the special prosecutor assigned to the case. “The evidence clearly shows a pattern of criminal disregard for safety on the ‘Rust’ film set. In New Mexico, there is no room for film sets that don’t take our state’s commitment to gun safety and public safety seriously,” Reeb added.
Over the months, while the Santa Fe Sheriff’s office put the final touches on its wide ranging investigation of the late 2021 shooting at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, the D.A. has been partially planting the seeds for today’s announcement.
An August 30 letter to the New Mexico Board of Finance from Carmack-Altwies revealed the D.A’s possible intentions to prosecute as many as four individuals with criminal and homicide charges related to Rust including “one of the possible defendants” being “well known movie actor Alec Baldwin.” In her ask, Carmack-Altwies was requesting $635,000 for the matter, but was only granted $317,750 by the state.
Much has happened around the Rust tragedy on-screen and in the courts, as many have waited on Carmack-Altwies’ decision.
In an ABC news interview with George Stephanopoulos in December 2021, Baldwin insisted he never actually pulled the trigger of the gun that took Hutchins’ life during a quick-draw rehearsal move in a church location on the set of Rust. Just minutes before the shots that killed Hutchins and wounded Souza, Baldwin was told by Assistant Director Dave Halls that the 1880s Colt prop weapon was a “cold gun, as many witnesses including Hall have asserted. Seemingly indifferent to his own tone, Baldwin also told the Good Morning America co-host in the now infamous sit-down, that he had been told by people who are in the know, in terms of even inside the state, that it’s highly unlikely that I would be charged with anything criminally.”
Just a couple of weeks prior to the anniversary of the tragedy, Baldwin and Rust producers reached a settlement with the Hutchins Estate on October 5, 2022, ending the wrongful death suit brought forth in mid-February against the production and the actor, who also served as a producer on the $7 million budgeted film.
Part of the agreement entailed the DP’s husband Matthew Hutchins becoming an executive producer on the resurrected Rust movie, which was scheduled to start reshooting this month. While the production has been scouting locations in California, such as Simi Valley, Deadline heard, no official word has been given about the Western fully resuming production and where it would actually film. There is also no word if Rust has been able to get insured, a necessary requirement to make a movie.
At the time the deal with the Hutchins estate was made public, the Santa Fe-based District Attorney made sure that there was no perception this was all over. “The proposed settlement announced today in Matthew Hutchins’ wrongful death case against Rust movie producers, including Alec Baldwin, in the death of Halyna Hutchins will have no impact on District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies’ ongoing investigation or her ultimate decision whether to file criminal charges in the case,” her office said in a quickly issued statement.
Staying in the public eye over the last year, Baldwin was set to star in the spy movie Chief of Station, shooting in Budapest, however, the actor had to vacate the role over scheduling issues back on October 31.
As civil lawsuits and that wrongful death action from Hutchins’ family hit court dockets in New Mexico and California over the last year, the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office in late 2022 finally made public the FBI assisted police report which detailed the calamities that ensued before the shooting of Hutchins on October. 21, 2021.
The raw 551-page report cast suspicion on Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, among others on what appeared to be an openly problematic set. Dolly grip Ross Addiego, for instance, claimed to police that the armorer and her crew had issues that involved “negligent discharges”. The armorer was preparing one of six guns and one of the revolvers went off toward her foot. A few minutes later at the cabin set, a discharged gun went off that wasn’t announced, which would have been assistant director Dave Halls’ responsibility to announce, per Addiego.
Besides the live round in the gun in Baldwin’s hand, the FBI found five more rounds of live ammo on the Rust set, the report detailed. Additionally, the report cast doubt on Baldwin’s assertion that he never pulled the trigger. “With the hammer at full cock, the revolver could not be made to fire without a pull of the trigger while the working internal components were intact and functional,” the document stated.
The report also went into detail on other instances of guns going off on Rust.
Reese Price, a key grip, told authorities that “accidental discharge” occurred twice during the course of one day on set. “One of the accidental discharges occurred by ‘armorer girl’ who was messing with a gun,” Price told authorities. Souza, in his interview with the cops, reported there wasn’t any negligence on the set, and didn’t believe the armorer intermingled live rounds with blanks.
While staying in the public eye over the last year, multi-Emmy winner Baldwin hasn’t been in front of the camera much professionally since the Rust shooting. Baldwin was set to star in the spy movie Chief of Station, shooting in Budapest, however, the actor had to vacate the role over scheduling issues back on October 31.
In that vein, in mid-November last year, Baldwin took on the role of plaintiff and hit Rust armorer Gutierrez Reed, first assistant director Halls, property master Sarah Zachry, and weapons and rounds supplier Seth Kenney and his company with a negligence lawsuit.
Filed in LA Superior Court, the action claimed that “Baldwin has also lost numerous job opportunities and associated income” because of what happened on Rust. “For example, he’s been fired from multiple jobs expressly because of the incident on Rust and has been passed over for other opportunities, which is a direct result of the negligence of Cross-Defendants Gutierrez-Reed, Halls, Kenney, PDQ, and Zachry,” stated the cross-complaint paperwork prepared by Quinn Emanuel attorney Luke Nikas for Baldwin.
Along with a much challenged but still enduring suit from Rust‘s script supervisor Mamie Mitchell, that matter remains before the California courts.
_____________________________________________________ Gee thats too bad & here is his possibly future Cellmates. Grumpy 
Of course he could pull an OJ as you can never know, right?
- Halyna Hutchins was killed by a live round inexplicably fired by Alec Baldwin
- The shooting happened on the set of their movie Rust in October 2021
- The Santa Fe set was subsequently shut down and an investigation launched
- A decision on if criminal charges will be filed against Baldwin or any others is expected to be delivered by the Santa Fe DA’s office on Thursday
Officials in New Mexico are set to deliver a decision on Thursday about whether or not they will pursue criminal charges against Alec Baldwin or others in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of Western movie Rust.
Halyna Hutchins was killed by a live round fired by the gun the actor was holding on October 21, 2021, but the actor insists he didn’t pull the trigger and blames prop managers for not checking if the gun was loaded.
New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies and special prosecutor Andrea Reeb will announce their decision at 9 a.m. Mountain Standard Time, according to a statement issued on Wednesday.
Baldwin is among up to four people who may face criminal charges for the death of the cinematographer, Carmack-Altwies has said.
The ’30 Rock’ and ‘Saturday Night Live’ actor, who also served as a producer on ‘Rust,’ has denied responsibility for the shooting.
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Alec Baldwin is among up to four people who may face criminal charges for the shooting death of ‘Rust’ cinematographer Halyna Hutchins who was accidentally killed on the set
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Halyna Hutchins, 42, was accidentally shot and killed by Baldwin on the set of the movie ‘Rust’
Baldwin has said he was told the gun was ‘cold,’ an industry term meaning it is safe to use, and that he did not pull the trigger. He has sued crew members for negligence.
An FBI forensic test of the single-action revolver that Baldwin was using found it ‘functioned normally’ and would not fire without the trigger being pulled.
New Mexico’s Office of the Medical Investigator has ruled the shooting an accident, saying the gun did not appear to have been deliberately loaded with a live round. Authorities have been trying to determine how a real bullet made its way to the movie set.
Hutchins’ family settled a wrongful death lawsuit against Baldwin and other producers last year. Under the agreement, filming on the low-budget movie is set to resume this month with Hutchins’ husband serving as an executive producer.
In police interviews and lawsuit filings, the film’s armorer, first assistant director, prop supplier and prop master all denied culpability for the shooting.
New Mexico’s worker safety agency in April fined the film’s production company the maximum amount possible for what it described as ‘willful’ safety lapses leading to Hutchins’ death.
An FBI report said five live bullets were found on a props trolley and in a bandolier and holster near the movie-set church where Hutchins was shot.
The district attorney’s office previous said it will conduct a ‘thorough review of the information and evidence to make a thoughtful, timely decision about whether to bring charges.’
It is still unclear when and if charges, if any, might be filed.
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Baldwin and Hutchins on the set of Rust last year. He maintains he never pulled the trigger
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A distraught Alec Baldwin lingers in the parking lot outside the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office in Santa Fe following the October 2021 killing
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The anticipated announcement from Santa Fe’s First Judicial District Attorney’s Office is expected on Thursday and comes as part of the ongoing legal saga surrounding the death on set. Pictured: Bonanza Creek Ranch, where Baldwin shot Hutchins
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Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot on October 21, 2021 on the set of the movie
In documents released by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office were accounts of interviews with witnesses including text messages and emails from crew and cast members, sometimes detailing chaotic and acrimonious conditions on set prior to Hutchins’ death.
The documents still offer no conclusive answers on how live ammunition got onto the movie set and into a replica Colt .45-caliber revolver that was fired by Baldwin and killed Hutchins.
Baldwin was handed the gun during a rehearsal at a ranch outside Santa Fe. A live round hit her and movie director Joel Souza, who survived.
Baldwin has denied responsibility for Hutchins’ death and said live rounds should never have been allowed onto the set of the low-budget movie.
Among others who have been blamed for the shooting are armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who Baldwin claims didn’t check the gun properly, and assistant director Dave Halls, the last person to handle the revolver before Baldwin.
By the time Halyna was killed, many of the film’s crew had walked off set in protest over conditions and pay.
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In this image from video released by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office, Alec Baldwin stands in costume and speaks with investigators following a fatal shooting last year on the movie set.
In his own lawsuit, Baldwin accuses armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed of failing to verify the Colt revolver he was using was safe
Baldwin, serving as a producer and starring actor in the movie, has since avoided criminal charges, even after being ruled partially responsible for the tragedy.
The civil settlement does not affect Santa Fe’s current criminal investigation.
In October, Baldwin filed a lawsuit against four people involved in the film saying they were negligent in providing him with a gun that discharged.
The suit sees Baldwin suing film’s armorer and props assistant, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed; assistant director David Halls; props master Sarah Zachry; and Seth Kenney, who supplied guns and ammunition to the film set.
In his suit, Baldwin accuses Gutierrez-Reed of failing to verify that a Colt revolver he was using in rehearsal was safe.
The suit also states that Halls failed to check the weapon before he declared it safe and handed it to Baldwin, and that Zachry failed to ensure that weapons used on the New Mexico set were safe.
All those named in the suit have denied any culpability.
Baldwin’s complaint follows a suit filed against him and others on the set last year by script supervisor Mamie Mitchell over their alleged role in the shooting that caused her great emotional distress.
Baldwin reached a civil settlement with Hutchins’ family in October.
Millions of Americans face the threat of federal felony charges over guns they purchased legally thanks to a new rule released by the ATF.
The agency announced plans to publish the final version of their rule reclassifying pistol braces, a popular firearm accessory, on Friday. The rule, which President Joe Biden requested as part of his efforts to unilaterally reform gun laws, would effectively ban the use of braces unless registered with the ATF. Anyone who does not comply with the rule could be subject to upwards of ten years in federal prison despite the agency previously ruling the braces were legal multiple times over the past decade.
“While firearms equipped with ‘stabilizing braces’ or other rearward attachments may be submitted to ATF for a new classification determination, a majority of the existing firearms equipped with a ‘stabilizing brace’ are likely to be classified as ‘rifles’ because they are configured for shoulder fire based on the factors described in this rule,” the ATF said in the rule. “Because many of these firearms generally have a barrel of less than 16 inches, they are likely to be classified as short-barreled rifles subject to regulation and registration under the [National Firearms Act (NFA)] and [Gun Control Act].”
The agency says that nearly everyone with a pistol-brace-equipped gun is “violating the NFA by possessing an unregistered rifle with a barrel of less than 16 inches.”
The rule has wide-ranging implications for many American gun owners as pistol braces have exploded in popularity since the ATF first determined they did not convert pistols into heavily-regulated short-barrel rifles back in 2012. The exact number of braces already in circulation is unclear, but the number is well into the millions. The ATF itself estimates three to seven million of the devices exist. The Congressional Research Service puts the number much higher at somewhere between 10 and 40 million.
The Biden Administration’s decision to move forward with the ban comes after hundreds of thousands of comments opposing the regulation were left during its public comment period. It also comes in the immediate aftermath of the Fifth Circuit ruling against the Trump-era bump stock ban. That policy was implemented through the same rulemaking process and after the ATF had also previously declared bump stocks to fall outside the NFA’s purview, which could foreshadow legal problems for the new pistol brace rule.
Attorney General Merrick Garland (D.) defended the rule change and said it was necessary to prevent crimes committed with guns he believes should be subject to NFA regulations.
“Keeping our communities safe from gun violence is among the Department’s highest priorities,” he said in a statement. “Almost a century ago, Congress determined that short-barreled rifles must be subject to heightened requirements. Today’s rule makes clear that firearm manufacturers, dealers, and individuals cannot evade these important public safety protections simply by adding accessories to pistols that transform them into short-barreled rifles.”
The NFA requires Americans to register all rifles that have barrels shorter than 16 inches and pay a tax of $200, a process that can take nearly a year, or face federal felony charges. However, the law defines “rifles” as guns that are “designed and intended” to be shouldered. The ATF initially determined firearms equipped with pistol braces, which are designed to be strapped to a shooter’s forearm instead of pressed against their shoulder, are not rifles and, therefore, not subject to NFA regulations.
For the next decade, the agency issued often vague or contradictory determinations on different versions of pistol braces that were subsequently created. At one point during the Obama Administration, the agency claimed the act of pressing a pistol brace against a shooter’s shoulder constituted a redesign of the product turning it into an illegal unregistered short-barrel rifle only to later rescind that declaration under the Trump Administration. The inconsistency led to increasing complaints the agency doesn’t use any objective measure for determining the legality of the devices.
Now, under the Biden Administration, the agency’s new rule purports to be more objective but still relies on subjective measures, including whether the agency believes “indirect marketing” of a brace shows it is meant to be shouldered. Ultimately, it classifies nearly all pistol-brace-equipped firearms as unregistered short-barrel rifles. The agency gave Americans who own pistol-braced guns a few options to avoid potential prosecution.
“Any weapons with “stabilizing braces” or similar attachments that constitute rifles under the NFA must be registered no later than 120 days after date of publication in the Federal Register,” the agency said,” or the short barrel removed and a 16-inch or longer rifle barrel attached to the firearm; or permanently remove and dispose of, or alter, the “stabilizing brace” such that it cannot be reattached; or the firearm is turned in to your local ATF office. Or the firearm is destroyed.”
The rule faces substantial political opposition. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of public comments opposing the rule, nearly every member of the Senate Republican caucus sent a letter to Attorney General Garland demanding he withdraw of the rule during the summer.
“The way the proposed rule is written makes clear that ATF intends to bring the most common uses of the most widely possessed stabilizing braces within the purview of the NFA,” the senators said in the letter. “Doing so would turn millions of law-abiding Americans into criminals overnight, and would constitute the largest executive branch-imposed gun registration and confiscation scheme in American history.”
Gun-rights groups have promised to fight the rule in court. Erich Pratt, Gun Owners of America senior vice president, said his group is already writing up a lawsuit.
“This administration continues to find new ways to attack gun owners, and this time their target is brace-equipped firearms that allow persons with disabilities to safely and effectively use pistols,” he said in a statement. “We will continue to work with our industry partners to amplify the disapproving voices in the firearms industry, and the Gun Owners Foundation, our sister legal arm, will be filing suit in the near future.”
Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, said they will update their active case against the agency over its handling of braces.
“The Second Amendment Foundation already has a lawsuit filed against ATF over arm braces and will amend it to include their new attack,” he told The Reload.
You’ve probably heard someone you know or, at least, someone online opine that police shouldn’t shoot to kill when they draw their firearms. Instead, they should wound people by hitting a leg or an arm. The most ignorant of this crowd ask “why not just shoot the gun out of the criminal’s hand?”
Our commander-in-chief, President Joe Biden, is apparently one such person. While giving a speech at the National Action Network’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast in Washington, the “leader” of the free world decided to weigh in on your local police force should be handling situations where a firearm is necessary.
“We have to retrain cops,” said Biden. “Why should you always shoot with deadly force? The fact is if you need to use your weapon, you don’t have to do that.”
Incredible.
Firstly, getting shot in the leg or the arm doesn’t guarantee one survives being shot. Hitting an artery is a solid way to bleed out swiftly if help doesn’t come soon enough.
That said, it’s pretty clear that Biden and people like him have watched one too many action movies. In cinema, the gunman of great skill retains an unchanging grim, if not uncaring expression as he casually shoots the extremities of his opponent, rendering them helpless and allowing him to get the info he needs. Even in the midst of chaos, he never loses his cool and his aim is always perfect.
In real life, adrenaline is shooting through the body putting the brain in fight or flight mode. The hands can get very shaky and one’s aim becomes less reliable. Even if the person wielding the gun is steady and aiming as best they can in these high-stakes situations, his target might be moving swiftly or even shooting back, making the shooter’s aim that much less accurate.
Hitting a limb is a gamble and the odds aren’t in favor of the shooter. The shot is likely to either miss or hit the larger part of the person’s body.
This is why police are trained to shoot at center mass when relying on deadly force. They aren’t trained to shoot to wound, it’s to kill. Anything else risks the life of the officer and runs the risk of hitting anyone behind the target.
Biden clearly doesn’t understand this because Biden, like many anti-gun Democrats, has little to no experience with firearms. He’s had all of his needs for protection taken care of for him. Yet he moralizes about what the people who protect us every day should do when in situations he’s never, and will never, be in.
This is just another example of a Democrat’s need to virtue signal in ignorance making it possible for people who know better to be put in danger.
Martin John Bryant was born in May of 1967 in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, the oldest son of Maurice and Carleen Bryant. Martin consistently broke his toys and once yanked the snorkel from another child while he was diving. He tortured animals, was obsessed with fire, and had an IQ of 66, about the equivalent of an 11-year-old.
Bryant was unsuccessful in school and was too socially awkward to maintain normal friendships. However, in early 1987 at age 19 he met a 54-year-old woman named Helen Mary Elizabeth Harvey. Ms. Harvey had inherited a share of the Tattersall’s lottery fortune and was both eccentric and wealthy. Tattersall’s is a conglomerate that has a functional monopoly on the lottery system in Australia.
Harvey maintained 14 dogs and 30 cats in a run-down mansion owned by her ailing mother. She invited Bryant to move in with her, and the two of them bought some thirty new cars over a three-year period. They traveled widely together and spent money with wanton abandon. Throughout it all Martin Bryant was persistently both strange and violent.
In 1992 Martin and Helen were driving on a rural road when Helen swerved the car into oncoming traffic and was killed. Martin Bryant suffered a severe back injury and required seven months in hospital to recover. Previously Bryant had been known to lunge for the steering wheel while a passenger in a car and had already precipitated three automobile accidents. Helen Harvey left the entirety of her estate, some $550,000, to Martin.
Two months later Martin’s father Maurice went missing. Divers eventually found him at the bottom of a pond with one of Martin’s scuba weight belts wrapped around his neck. The police declared the death a suicide. With the death of his father, Martin acquired another quarter-million dollar.
Martin grew ever more despondent and began to drink heavily and daily. Soon after New Year in 1996, he began planning his bloody masterwork. He confided to a neighbor, “I’ll do something that will make everyone remember me.”
The Crime
Martin Bryant’s father had complained incessantly that a local couple, David and Noelene Martin, had somehow cheated the Bryant clan by buying a nearby bed and breakfast called Seascape. On April 28, 1996, Martin drove to David and Noelene’s home and killed them both.
Bryant then proceeded to the Port Arthur Historic Site, a popular nearby tourist destination, interacting with several people along the way. Some of these witnesses later described him as rude, while others said he was friendly. Bryant parked his car near a café on the premises. He then entered the restaurant carrying a large black bag, bought lunch, and ate it in a leisurely fashion at an outdoor table.
During his meal, Bryant made small talk with the other people in the cafe. He responsibly returned his tray and retrieved a Colt SP-1 AR-15 Carbine equipped with a 3x Colt scope and 30-round magazine from his bag. In the fifteen seconds that followed Martin Bryant fired seventeen rounds and killed twelve people, wounding another ten.
Bryant then made his way into the gift shop where he fired a dozen rounds, killing another eight people and wounded two more. His victims were hemmed in and helpless. Many of the dead were shot at extremely close range. Bryant reloaded his rifle in the gift shop and left the empty magazine on the checkout counter.
Bryant then moved to the car park. He fired at Ashley Law, a site employee, at a range of about 75 meters but missed. After sowing mayhem throughout the car lot he returned to his vehicle and exchanged his AR-15 for an L1A1 SLR rifle. By the time he grew weary of the car park, he had killed another six people and wounded the same number.
Bryant then mounted his car and headed down the drive away from the Historic Site.
On the way, he encountered a young mother with two children aged 3 and 6. This stupid monster exited his car and shot the three of them at contact range.
Once at the toll booth leading into the facility Bryant stopped a BMW, killing its four occupants. He loaded his weapons, a pair of handcuffs, and an extra fuel can from his own vehicle into the BMW before speeding off. He left behind a Daewoo USAS-12 shotgun. By now he had killed 33 and wounded 19.
Bryant stopped at a nearby gas station and confronted a couple there. For reasons unknown, he forced the male half of the pair into the boot of his stolen BMW and killed the man’s girlfriend. The service station attendant had a rifle, but Bryant was gone by the time he could retrieve ammunition and get it loaded.
Bryant then returned to Seascape, shooting and injuring several bystanders along the way. Once back at the bed and breakfast he handcuffed his prisoner to a stair railing and incinerated the BMW. The following morning, having murdered his hostage and now surrounded by police, Martin Bryant set fire to the building. He taunted the cops to “come and get him.”
The police let the building burn around him. Bryant eventually fled the conflagration with his clothes alight. The cops found the remains of his two rifles in the burned out building.
The Weapons
ArmaLite designed the original 5.56mm AR-15 in the mid-1950s. “AR” stands for “ArmaLite Rifle,” a designation that persists to the present. ArmaLite sold the manufacturing rights to the AR-15 to Colt’s Manufacturing Company in 1959. Colt sold the first semiautomatic AR-15 rifles to the public in 1964.
Original AR-15 rifles featured a fixed polymer stock and a 20-inch barrel. Colt eventually offered a carbine version of the weapon with a collapsible aluminum buttstock and 16-inch thin-profile barrel. The stubby little 3X Colt scope featured a fixed magnification and built-in mechanical bullet drop compensator.
The SLR or “Self-Loading Rifle” was the British version of the Belgian-designed FN-FAL that saw military use from 1954 to the present. The SLR was also known at the C1A1 in Canadian parlance or the “Inch Pattern” FAL in the US. The FAL saw service with seventy different militaries to include the Australian Army.
The SLR is a 7.62x51mm semiautomatic gas-operated autoloader that features a tilting breechblock and feeds from a twenty-round box magazine. The SLR is a large rifle at 45 inches long and 9.56 pounds empty. The SLR served in the British Army until it was replaced by the L85A1 in 1984. In 1989 the Australian military replaced the SLR with the F88 Austeyr, an Australian-produced version of the Steyr AUG.
Fallout
The Port Arthur Massacre precipitated a nationwide transformation in the Australian public’s perceptions of firearms. Tasmania, where the massacre occurred, had previously been a predominantly rural bastion of gun ownership. Australian State governments passed laws to give effect to the sweeping National Firearms Agreement a mere twelve days after the massacre.
The Australian NFA placed tight restrictions on the ownership of semi and fully automatic weapons. As a result of the act, the Australian government bought back and destroyed 643,000 firearms for a total cost of $350 million. The money for this program came from a temporary increase in the Australian Medicare levy.
As a result of the NFA, there is currently a nationwide firearms registry as well as a 28-day waiting period on the purchase of firearms. The law stipulates storage requirements and demands a “genuine reason” for ownership. Self-defense is not an acceptable justification. As of 2014, there were at least 260,000 unregistered illegal firearms in circulation in Australia. Scholarly works undertaken since then have been inconclusive regarding the law’s effect on crime.
I was a soldier in 1997 and undertook a joint operation with the Australian Army soon after the NFA took effect. I recall passing Aussie gun shops that were boarded up and shuttered as a result of the legislation. The Australian soldiers with whom I worked, most of whom were politically conservative, deeply lamented the demise of their liberty. Today, some twenty-three years later, 85% of Australians feel that the NFA is either appropriate or too lenient. After two decades of acclimation, only 6% of citizens believe that the statutes are excessively restrictive.
Observations
Studying the dispassionate slaughter wrought by Martin Bryant was a tough read. His victims ranged in age from 72 down to 3. The most compelling aspect of the carnage to me, however, was the sheer helplessness of the victims. His targets fought back with foul language, profound bravery, and dinner trays, but they were all utterly helpless.
There are nearly 400 million firearms in America. The Australian government bought back 643,000 guns after their NFA. At the apogee of the Obama Presidency, there were that many NICS checks in the US in nine days. An Australia-style gun buyback is a physical impossibility in the United States.
Martin Bryant pled guilty and received 35 life sentences and 1,035 years in prison. He remains in solitary confinement in Hobart’s Risdon Prison today. The profound effects this one psychopath had on Australian culture will never be undone.
