Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News Editorials & Other Articles General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search
 

Electric Monk

(13,869 posts)
Mon Oct 12, 2015, 02:15 PM Oct 2015

Meet A Generation That Has Grown Up Free From Mass Shootings

Last edited Mon Oct 12, 2015, 02:59 PM - Edit history (1)

(cross-posted from GD)

SYDNEY, Australia – Most Australians would remember where they were when they first heard something bad was going on at Port Arthur. I was walking through the common room at my university residential college and there was a group glued to the old picture­ tube television in the corner -- strange for daylight hours. Scraps of information were seeping out from the wind­swept historical site on the southern shore of Tasmania, not far from the bottom of the world and already stalked by the ghosts of its brutal penal colony past. No one was Tweeting. Social media barely existed. Mobile phones were a luxury and spots as remote as Port Arthur had no coverage anyway.

A gunman was on the loose. Five, ten, 15 people shot. Preposterous numbers that just kept growing. Local police scrambled down the narrow road in, unaware what horror they approached. In the end the toll from ‘the Port Arthur Massacre,’ as it’s etched into Australian vernacular, was 35 dead and 23 injured.

April 28, 1996. Twenty years next year. It’s sometimes cheap to say an event changed a nation -- but Port Arthur changed Australia. A whole generation of young Australians is now coming of age having never borne witness to a mass shooting in their own country. They don’t remember Port Arthur because they weren’t born when a 28­-year-­old with a low IQ stalked through a tourist attraction picking off innocent men, women and children with high-powered weaponry for reasons none of us will ever fathom.

Young adults who have graduated high ­school, can vote, drive and legally drink alcohol (in Australia the drinking age is 18) have never walked on to campus fearing the weirdo from their economics tutorial might turn out to be a gun nut with a death wish.

That’s freedom.

more
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/australia-gun-control_561bb80ce4b0e66ad4c86fa0
4 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Meet A Generation That Has Grown Up Free From Mass Shootings (Original Post) Electric Monk Oct 2015 OP
That generation won't exist in America. Their collective trauma is just more "collateral damage," villager Oct 2015 #1
Domination is our freedom. Turbineguy Oct 2015 #2
US gun lovers threaten violent insurrection if we try to enact Dems to Win Oct 2015 #3
Off topic, a link for you. Erich Bloodaxe BSN Oct 2015 #4
 

villager

(26,001 posts)
1. That generation won't exist in America. Their collective trauma is just more "collateral damage,"
Mon Oct 12, 2015, 02:20 PM
Oct 2015

...so that Lord God Gun may continue to infect us all.

Turbineguy

(38,333 posts)
2. Domination is our freedom.
Mon Oct 12, 2015, 02:28 PM
Oct 2015

Last edited Mon Oct 12, 2015, 03:22 PM - Edit history (1)

Strange really. We fought World War II and endured the Cold War (duck and cover!) only to wish this upon ourselves later.

Latest Discussions»Issue Forums»Gun Control Reform Activism»Meet A Generation That Ha...