The perpetrator, Martin Bryant, killed 35 people and wounded 23 others, the deadliest massacre in modern Australian history.

The majority of his victims were killed in a shooting spree at the Port Arthur Historic Site, a popular tourist destination.

Using two semi-automatic rifles, he began his attack at a small café before moving into a nearby gift shop, killing twenty people indiscriminately in a short amount of time.

Bryant pleaded guilty to the killings and received 35 life sentences without parole; his motives have been subject to debate.

The main location of the incident was the historic Port Arthur former prison colony,[4] a popular tourist site in south-eastern Tasmania, Australia.

[5] In 1992, Martin Bryant—then 25—was bequeathed about $570,000 in property and assets by a friend, Helen Harvey, who left her estate to him following her death in a car crash.

Bryant is allowed to listen only to music on a radio outside his cell and is denied access to any news reports of his massacre.

[10] A redesign of the laws for all states and territories of Australia had been prepared by officers and presented at a meeting of police ministers in Launceston in 1995.

[1]: 50 David and Noelene Martin were the first victims, murdered at the Seascape property (43°07′09″S 147°51′12″E / 43.11905°S 147.85328°E / -43.11905; 147.85328) at some point within a 12 hour timeframe prior to the Port Arthur attack.

[1]: 69 He travelled past the Port Arthur historic site towards a Palmer's Lookout Road property owned by the Martins, where he came across Roger Larner.

[1]: 71 At around 1:10 p.m., Bryant paid the entry fee for the site and proceeded to park near the Broad Arrow Café (43°08′47″S 147°51′05″E / 43.14652°S 147.85139°E / -43.14652; 147.85139), near the water's edge.

Bryant pointed his rifle at the table beside him, fatally shooting Moh Yee (William) Ng and Sou Leng Chung, who were visiting from Malaysia.

Thelma Walker and Pamela Law were injured by fragments from these shots before being dragged to the ground by their friend, Peter Crosswell, as the three sheltered underneath the table.

[12] Bryant moved just a few metres and began shooting at the table where Graham Colyer, Carolyn Loughton and her daughter Sarah were seated.

He fatally shot the two local women who worked in the gift shop: 17-year-old Nicole Burgess, in the head, and 26-year-old Elizabeth Howard, in the arm and chest.

Pauline Masters, Vera Jary's husband Ron, and Peter and Carolyn Nash had attempted to escape through a locked door but could not open it.

Jason Winter, hiding in the gift shop, thought Bryant had left the building and made a comment about it to people near him before moving out into the open.

Fragments from those shots struck American tourist Dennis Olson, who had been hiding with his wife Mary and Winter.

Bryant walked back to the café and then returned to the gift shop, where he fatally shot Ronald Jary, Peter Nash and Pauline Masters.

[13] In the café and gift shop combined, he fired twenty-nine shots, killed twenty people, and wounded twelve more.

[15] Bryant drove up to the toll booth at the exit of the historical site, where there were several vehicles, and blocked a 1980 gold BMW 7 Series owned by Mary Rose Nixon.

[15] Bryant drove up to the service station in front of the Port Arthur General Store (43°08′23″S 147°51′03″E / 43.13983°S 147.85079°E / -43.13983; 147.85079) and cut off a white Toyota Corolla that was attempting to exit onto the highway.

[15] As Bryant drove down to Seascape, he shot at a red Ford Falcon coming the other way, smashing its front windscreen.

The former Broad Arrow Café structure is now a "place for quiet reflection", with a monument and memorial garden dedicated at the site in April 2000.

[21] Following the spree, the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, led the development of strict gun control laws within Australia and formulated the National Firearms Agreement, restricting the private ownership of semi-automatic rifles, semi-automatic shotguns and pump-action shotguns as well as introducing uniform firearms licensing.

[22] The massacre happened just six weeks after the Dunblane massacre, in Scotland, which claimed 18 lives, with UK Prime Minister John Major reaching out to his counterpart over the shared tragedies; the United Kingdom passed its own changes to gun laws the next year after a change of government.

[25] Some state governments, notably Tasmania itself and Queensland,[citation needed] were generally opposed to new gun laws.

Concern was raised within the Coalition Government that fringe groups such as the "Ausi Freedom Scouts",[26] the Australian League of Rights and the Citizen Initiated Referendum Party, were exploiting voter anger to gain support.

The work was first performed 24 June 1996, at Government House, Hobart, Tasmania, by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Porcelijn.

[36] In this theory the saturation media coverage provides both instruction and perverse incentives for dysfunctional individuals to imitate previous crimes.