May I remind Victorians of the so-called
father’s day massacre in 2000.
Only one died, my 11 year old nephew.
He’d been sitting at a computer while his
nine year old brother played on the floor
with a loaded antique pistol.
The bullet also passed through the neck of
the little one who frantically ran around
mopping up blood with a tea towel.
The man presented to the media as
a grieving parent holding his injured boy.
He was a licensed second-hand dealer and had
given my sister an old car after their divorce.
I believe it had bald tyres.
He stalked her from Melbourne to Gympie
where she was establishing a new home.
After one hearing in Melbourne she travelled
back to Queensland by bus and picked up the car
from a friend’s house. The boys survived the crash
but my sister died, crushed by the steering wheel.
In spite of court orders, our family lost touch with
my nephew. Mum had left him a house
in Warnambool, and he appeared at her funeral,
a softly-spoken young man.
His father quipped, your family is jinxed.
Howard’s gun controls are sensible in a misogynistic
culture, but all they meant to one old bastard
was the chance to chuck out his rusty rifles.