HERCULANEUM

New Town to Newtown: How ’96 Massacre Spurred Gun Laws in Australia — and No Mass Shootings Since In the wake of the Newtown killings that left 27 people dead on Friday, we go to another New Town — in Australia — the home of a mass shooting that killed 35 people in 1996. Just 12 days after what became known as the Port Arthur massacre, Australia’s government responded by announcing a bipartisan deal to enact gun control measures. There have been no mass killings since. We’re joined by Rebecca Peters, an international arms control advocate who led the campaign to reform Australia’s gun laws after the Port Arthur massacre. She also produced the landmark report, "Gun Control in the United States: A Comparative Survey of State Firearm Laws," with the Open Society Institute in New York.

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