Did Martin Bryant really kill all those people?

[pkbites]

Back in 1996 a lunatic named Martin Bryant pulled out a gun and shot almost 2 dozen people. But this cite suggests that he didn't do it. Huh? I thought all the evidence was overwhelming. What exact arguements can be made that this guy is innocent? Present them here.

[coosa]

pkbites, please go take a look at this guy's homepage:
http://www.geocities.com/vialls/index.html

It appears that he is some kind of conspiracy freak - I haven't done more than glance at the site, but did notice a claim that there were no Arab hijackers aboard the 9/11 planes, and that somehow the planes were hijacked electronically from the ground. I'm not terribly impressed with this man's mental stability and I'm very inclined to dismiss the Martin Bryant page as the ravings of a unsound mind.

Perhaps some of our Aussie Dopers will have some idea of what he is talking about (if anything).

[coosa]

Okay, here is the main page of Viall's claims about Bryant:
http://www.geocities.com/vialls/portarthur.html

The only link I can get to work right now is the one advertising the book Mr. Viall has written about Bryant. On all of the others I get a Yahoo notice that the site is temporarily down due to an overload, but should be back up within an hour. I would like to see his 'evidence', although I suspect it is all either misinterpreted or manufactured. Maybe later.

[Daoloth]

The evidence is overwhelming: video footage, hundreds of witnesses, his own confession. This nut asserts that Bryant essentially killed too many too fast, namely within the cafe, where his first attack was. He blames it on Australian commandos, if I'm not mistaken.

[Primaflora]

Port Arthur is one of those cases which has attracted conspiracy theories. But the video footage and Bryant's confession don't exactly leave much room for doubt that he did it.

I can't get that page to load but is he one of those loons who say that the massacre was organised by the anti-gun lobby so that there would be law reform?

[gex gex]

The site is nuts. Martin Bryant did it. There isn't much doubt of that. It's somewhat akin to alleging that the Columbine massacre wasn't committed by those two guys (their names elude me at the moment).

I mean look at the site - it claims that Bryant was convicted without trial (completely untrue) and that numerous Australian and International human rights organisations are ignoring the anomalies in his (apparently non-existent) trial. Maybe they, too, are part of the conspiracy?

I'm surprised the site didn't try to claim that Martin Bryant shot JFK and faked the moon landings.

[Phoenix Dragon]

Heh.. I think I remember seeing some ranting about how this guy "couldn't have done it" back when I was researching some other mass-shootings. I remember some specific comments about how he couldn't have shot so many people so accurately in such a short time, and used FBI shooting accuracy as a comparison. He completely neglected that similar shooters have always had a higher hit-to-shot ratio than LEOs, simply because their targets aren't firing back. If you've got even a little seperation between you and your target, especially if they're not expecting anything before your first shot, you've got a huge advantage. No special training needed.

But just look at some of his other rants to see how crazy his theories are. His one about Columbia is amusing. He makes several claims about NASA that they haven't made (Like saying that the foam was, absolutely, what caused the crash), then showed a picture of what he says is a picture of the shuttle wing with photoshoped cracks painted over it, from Israeli intelligence. He's a crackpot.

Hell, the one on the main page about the delta mark on US armored vehicles "subconciously" triggering some thought about Israel is idiotic enough. I love how he somehow conjures a "V" out of thin air to complete the symbol, despite it not being present anywhere on the vehicle.

Originally posted by Gex Gex
The site is nuts. Martin Bryant did it. There isn't much doubt of that. It's somewhat akin to alleging that the Columbine massacre wasn't committed by those two guys (their names elude me at the moment).

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. And I've seen sites that claim that, too...