n Sunday 28 April 1996 a security guard, Ian Kingston, stood in the doorway of the Broad Arrow cafe at the historic site of Port Arthur in southern Tasmania. He stared at the body of a man lying on the floor, then looked up into the barrel of a semi-automatic rifle. He dived back out the door as Martin Bryant pulled the trigger. Bryant killed 12 people in 15 seconds.
On the gravel path outside the cafe Kingston tried to herd people who thought the gunshots were part of a historical re-enactment up the garden and out of range. He knew he couldn’t go back inside. “You don’t get a second chance with a gun like that,” Kingston says.
Bryant moved towards the gift shop in the next 75 seconds, killing another eight people. In little over half an hour the death toll would be 35, with 23 wounded. It became the worst single-person mass shooting in Australia’s history; and is still the third worst recorded worldwide.
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