Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
Fri, 2 May 2025
This week, the boys begin the story of a national tragedy that ultimately led to massive legislative changes to firearm laws across Australia and the collection/destruction of over a million firearms. We're headin' down to Tasmania for the story of the Port Arthur Massacre and the most irritating man in history, Martin Bryant. For Live Shows, Merch, and More Visit: www.LastPodcastOnTheLeft.comKevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Last Podcast on the Left ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.
Chapter 1: What is the Port Arthur Massacre and who was Martin Bryant?
See, now he caught it for me. And let's not say talent. Maybe we could say skill. Skill, skill, skill, skill, skill. Charles Whitman is like the Madonna of mass shooters. He started it all. You know what I mean? And he really kind of set the template. One more share.
So Martin Bryant, a.k.a. the most irritating man in history, was the perpetrator of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre on the Australian island of Tasmania, in which 23 people were wounded and 35 were killed. Using an AR-15, a semi-automatic .308, and a shotgun, Martin killed with incredible speed and utter cruelty, murdering 12 people and wounding 10 in just the first 15 seconds of the massacre.
Bryant even took a hostage, and the ordeal only ended when the bed and breakfast he'd barricaded himself inside began to burn down from a fire Bryant had set himself, and the cops arrested him in the B&B's front yard naked because his clothes had been burned away.
He's a dumber version of Wile E. Coyote. I've been trying to figure out which cartoon character Martin Bryan is because the more you watch him, the more you realize that he really was in his entirely own world.
He's an unreal person.
Yes.
A totally unreal character.
You're talking about doing mass shootings while walking around going... You're like whistling and snapping and laughing and walking around. He's essentially in my mind, which Marcus didn't necessarily agree with, but I see him as like Roger Rabbit. Roger Rabbit loved everybody. He's just trying to make the world laugh.
Imagine Roger Rabbit with antisocial personality disorder and an extremely easy to use assault rifle. Can this guy sing? Yeah, I mean, I don't know. He seems strong, though. I mean, if you're carrying around an AR-15 and a shotgun and all those rounds and shit.
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Chapter 2: How did the Port Arthur Massacre influence Australian gun laws?
If you fall asleep, I'm railing your mother in front of you. That's how stepdads run in the school. Better than coffee.
The British, prior to 1776, sent many of their convicted felons to their American colonies. Basically, crime had hit a high in England in the 18th century. And since they weren't executing people for petty crimes anymore, they didn't have enough prisons to hold all their criminals. So many British criminals were first sent here to America.
It's a little known fact about America that there's a lot of convicts who were our early sellers.
I had a feeling. I also feel like, yeah, we got a lot of runoff.
Yeah.
And there's a lot of crazies.
Yeah. And plenty of other convicts ended up in colonies like Canada, West Indies, and Madagascar. But in 1788, after America was no longer a British colony, their government decided to send the vast majority of their exiled prisoners to Australia.
Man, give us our prisoners back. Yeah, man. I'm talking Australia, you greedy bastards. You know what's nice, though, is that you go to Australia because that's where the girls are hot, right? The guys are fun. The beer is cold. The koalas are hot.
It's a great town.
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Chapter 3: What is the historical background of Tasmania as a penal colony?
So you don't turn around and the kid's rooting through your luggage.
They're not protecting me from you. They're protecting you from me. Got any milk?
Well, the neighbors looked down on Carlene Bryant for doing this, for tying up her son. They said that the Bryants were treating their child like a dog. But Carlene, in what would be the first of many exhausted explanations throughout her life, defended the practice by saying that she at least knew that little Martin was safe.
See, Carlene loved Martin, but she found it extremely difficult to actually like her child. Likewise, Maurice Bryant found Martin to be just plain weird, and therefore spent most of his energy trying to make his son quote-unquote normal. Martin, however, was anything but. Well, Martin was slower to learn how to talk, and his fine motor skills didn't really develop.
I can't be contained!
I can't be contained! You won't even do it! You can't do it! Can't get me! Undisciplined!
Carlene would take Martin for hours-long walks every day to try to tire him out. But the feverish, unstoppable motor that seemed to power his every waking moment was impossible to control. For example, Carlene was getting her hair done at the salon one day when Martin fell off a balcony and split open his head.
After being taken to the hospital, Martin had to be given adult-strength sedatives so he could sit still long enough to get stitches. And even then, it took an hour for the sedatives to kick in.
I know what you're going to do. You're trying to knock me out. You're going to replace me with another child. And it's not going to happen because I got eyes on the sides and backs and bottom of my head. Gotta tell that kid. Can't get me. Can't get me. I'm utterly uncontrollable and I'm a fun little guy. So what are you going to do about it? You're a fucking doctor. What are you going to do?
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Chapter 4: What was Martin Bryant's family and early life like?
Yeah, something like that.
But you just get stabbed in the head with a spear gun. It seems like it came out of nowhere, especially because they're both in the crawfish industry.
Yeah, you should know to not stab anyone else in the head with a spear gun. Yes, that's right. And what do you even need a spear gun for if you're just getting crawfish? I miss fun. The crocs. Yeah, but if you're in the ocean.
Saltwater crocs. They're bigger.
It's true. What would I do without you? Now, by the time Martin Bryant reached high school, his father had done pretty well for himself in the real estate business. But in 1982, Maurice Bryant would make a miscalculation that would inadvertently cause Martin to choose Port Arthur as the site of his massacre 14 years later. See, Maurice owned a good amount of property in the town of Port Arthur.
The Bryants actually owned a vacation cottage there. So Martin was certainly acquainted with the town growing up. In the early 80s, though, Martin Bryant tried buying a bed and breakfast in Port Arthur, a little business called Seascape. But due to circumstance, the property was instead scooped up by a couple named David and Sally Martin.
Maurice spent years complaining that David and Sally had stolen Seascape, and he would often say that the loss of the property was what prevented him from reaching the next level as a real estate investor. Martin would listen intently to his father's grievances, and in turn, he held a deep grudge against the people who bought the Bed and Breakfast, a grudge that matched his father's.
That grudge would one day make the Seascape Bed and Breakfast the centerpiece of the Port Arthur Massacre.
So, Daddy, would you say you'd be, like, fun if I brought hell to them? I love you, boy.
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Chapter 5: How did Martin Bryant's childhood behavior and development manifest?
She wrote up a new will explicitly forbidding any of her money from going to her blood relatives upon her death, which meant that when Helen died, Martin Bryant was all set to become a multimillionaire who could pretty much buy and do whatever he wanted.
So crazy. This guy can't read, hasn't passed any school, does zero skills, can't even take care of the yard, is going to become a millionaire and still wants to kill everybody. I want to see this movie that is Brewster's Millions directed by fucking David Finch.
Like the David Fincher, like you literally do a thing where you have like you have to spend all the money and he's also on a killing spree.
Yeah. But concerning Martin's darkening moods, there were some red flags. A few weeks after Martin and Helen moved to their farm, a neighbor came by for tea. But before the neighbor finished her cuppa, Martin shooed her out the door and told her that if she ever came back, he'd shoot her.
Well, Martin also began skulking through his neighbor's properties at night, where he would use his trusty air rifle to shoot dogs. But for most of the people in the town of Copping, Martin and Helen were merely the local eccentric couple.
Every day, Martin and Helen would wake up late, then wander the local town aimlessly, shopping, eating long lunches, and driving around in a continuous stream of new cars filled with animals.
This is all I want to do. Why is this so much? Why is this asking too much? It's all I want for my life. Obviously, it's not going to make you happy. No, but that's just because that's them. I can maximize it.
Well, actually, I mean, I don't know. They were happy, though. They were. I mean, they'd drive around with their dogs, their cats. Sometimes they'd stuff a pony in the backseat, which greatly disturbed the locals, as it should. Ponies don't belong in the backseat of a sedan.
Unless they're taught to drive or handle the map. Yeah, you're supposed to tie them to the hood. That's the key.
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