Mass shooting in NZ mosque
Discussion
GravelBen said:
Burwood said:
Remember Aramoana? AK47 style weapons. 14 dead. If he didn't have the weapons, many of those 14 would be alive.
He was also reported to the police (twice IIRC) beforehand for being mentally unstable and threatening people, which the police tragically failed to act upon. Its sadly ironic in a way that rushing through knee-jerk legislation without proper consideration after that tragedy is what left us with some of the flaws and loopholes in the current laws, and in that sense contributed to last weeks events.
At least this time the immediate reaction has been done via order-in-council to give more time to consider and consult on proposed legislative changes, which should improve the chances of them being practical and effective.
red_slr said:
RobDickinson said:
GravelBen said:
Burwood said:
It’s a great move. I have no sympathy for hunters etc. Tough s
t.
I guess you have no sympathy for agriculture either (you know, the people who grow the food you eat) or the environment. Because st. tting on pest control is stting on that.Assault Rifles are FULLY AUTOMATIC firearms. Such as the AK47 and M16.
As someone who has invested the best part of 35 years of my life into target shooting I am sick and tired of uneducated people thinking they know best and can tell everyone else what "we" do and don't need. Actually *you* don't need any firearm because it does not interest you. Whats next we ban track days the next time someone dies on one because speed kills? Shall we ban knives, it seems there are hundreds of deaths a year in the UK with knives yet I can walk into Tesco tonight and buy one off the shelf.
The reality is there is a huge number of people who enjoy shooting in the UK. Over 1 million firearm owners in the UK. We as a group are more than happy to jump through hoops. It actually takes around 1 year to obtain a FAC now in the UK. Re certification every 5 years. The average person on the street has absolutely no idea what is involved - other than gun = bad, but they suddenly know what is and is not something "we" need with literally zero knowledge.
What is really scary is the people in Whitehall who make the decisions will happily feed MPs with "facts" such as the recent proposal to ban 50 Cal in the UK where they presented a load of evidence to MPs which rather embarrassingly was quite quickly proven to be false information and the ban has been halted, for now.
GravelBen said:
He was also reported to the police (twice IIRC) beforehand for being mentally unstable and threatening people, which the police tragically failed to act upon.
This kind of illustrates the point. Humans (as the police are) will never get it 100% right 100% of the time. And it gets even harder when they aren't resourced perfectly. So there needs to be another layer of protection, which in this case is some control over the types of guns that are available. It's kind of like how cars have airbags. You can train drivers and enforce road rules until you're blue in the face, but humans will still make mistakes.
I do agree with you about the need to not rush policy, and that article you linked to above explains the reasons for that very well.
Burwood said:
And I'm not surprised the farming community is nervous.
Its not that the rural or gun owning communities are opposed to changes to gun control as such (like I said earlier, we've wanted tighter licensing and tougher sentencing for years without action from the govt - see here for example: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_i... ), but there is definitely concern that the changes now will be overly restrictive of law-abiding citizens without really making life safer for anyone or having much impact on criminals.Some things certainly do need changing IMO, the most obvious being the availability of large magazines that can be bought without restriction and illegally fitted to A-cat semis. I don't know why the police didn't act on that issue previously as they certainly knew about it - possibly it was thought to be too legally complicated or they expected resistance, but I think that would have been supported any time. There are so many in circulation now though (and able to be manufactured or 3D-printed fairly easily these days too) that restricting the guns they can be fitted to probably is the only option left for that problem.
I'm still not convinced that the outright ban will be more effective for keeping them out of the wrong hands than putting them all on E-cat restricted licences, but its a moot point anyway as they've chosen the ban now. Time will tell and we just have to hope the decision-makers are getting it right.
I was discussing potential licensing system improvements with some mates this week, we all agreed that a renewal (or at least checkup) shorter than the current 10 years would be sensible, as well as requiring referees to have known the applicant for much longer than the current 2yrs. That was before we found out that the police didn't even follow their own current rules in giving the Chch shooter a licence, and accepted two 'referees' that knew him from an internet chat room! Thats beat-your-head-against-the-wall stuff for us as I'm sure you can understand.
Edited by GravelBen on Thursday 21st March 10:13
Digga said:
oop north said:
Digga said:
TBF, have you seen the size of the spiders down under?
Rather delightfully, NZ doesn’t have the snakes and big spiders that Australia has!
Redback spiders are here already after sneaking in with a shipment of grapes to Central Otago.
GravelBen said:
I'm still not convinced that the outright ban will be more effective for keeping them out of the wrong hands than putting them all on E-cat restricted licences, but its a moot point anyway as they've chosen the ban now. Time will tell and we just have to hope the decision-makers are getting it right.
Time is the key thing here. A ban today will not stop tomorrows criminal using one. But it will stop the criminal in 10+ years, who can't find one in working condition/that they can afford, without coming to police attention.Just because that lag exists, doesn't mean it's pointless like some people will try to say. (I don't think you said that. But it's the traditional US argument)
uncinqsix said:
GravelBen said:
He was also reported to the police (twice IIRC) beforehand for being mentally unstable and threatening people, which the police tragically failed to act upon.
This kind of illustrates the point. Humans (as the police are) will never get it 100% right 100% of the time. And it gets even harder when they aren't resourced perfectly. So there needs to be another layer of protection, which in this case is some control over the types of guns that are available. It's kind of like how cars have airbags. You can train drivers and enforce road rules until you're blue in the face, but humans will still make mistakes.
I do agree with you about the need to not rush policy, and that article you linked to above explains the reasons for that very well.
Munter said:
Time is the key thing here. A ban today will not stop tomorrows criminal using one. But it will stop the criminal in 10+ years, who can't find one in working condition/that they can afford, without coming to police attention.
Just because that lag exists, doesn't mean it's pointless like some people will try to say. (I don't think you said that. But it's the traditional US argument)
How often are semi auto rifles used in crime in NZ (or in any country for that matter)? Almost never. You may say that the mosque massacre still warrants a ban, but in the killer’s own manifesto, he stated that he could have used any number of methods to kill lots of people. Would the outcome have been much different if he had less guns and more bombs?Just because that lag exists, doesn't mean it's pointless like some people will try to say. (I don't think you said that. But it's the traditional US argument)
DurianIceCream said:
Munter said:
Time is the key thing here. A ban today will not stop tomorrows criminal using one. But it will stop the criminal in 10+ years, who can't find one in working condition/that they can afford, without coming to police attention.
Just because that lag exists, doesn't mean it's pointless like some people will try to say. (I don't think you said that. But it's the traditional US argument)
How often are semi auto rifles used in crime in NZ (or in any country for that matter)? Almost never. You may say that the mosque massacre still warrants a ban, but in the killer’s own manifesto, he stated that he could have used any number of methods to kill lots of people. Would the outcome have been much different if he had less guns and more bombs?Just because that lag exists, doesn't mean it's pointless like some people will try to say. (I don't think you said that. But it's the traditional US argument)
If this guy had been reduced to knives...how many less people would have died by simply getting more than 3 feet away from him?
Munter said:
People in the UK get caught trying to buy/import the materials to make bombs. Sure some slip through. But it's about making it tougher. We're doing a good enough job that the car and knives are pretty much the preferred weapon of choice now. They get used a lot in the US. I don't think that's a situation to aspire to by doing nothing.
If this guy had been reduced to knives...how many less people would have died by simply getting more than 3 feet away from him?
Handguns are used to commit the large majority of firearm crime in the US. I don't see the US as relevant anyway as the philosophy of firearm ownership and firearm laws is completely different. In the UK/NZ/Aus, self-defence is not a reason for owning firearms, you cannot just carry them around and you need a licence. The opposite is true in the US.If this guy had been reduced to knives...how many less people would have died by simply getting more than 3 feet away from him?
The person in NZ would not have been reduced to knives. The attack was well planned, going back years, when he obtained a firearms licence outside of the normal approval procedure. He states in his manifesto he could have used a lot of methods to kill a lot of people. He states he began planning it several years earlier. He states he wanted to kill a lot of people and considered a lot of methods.
Do you think if he hadn't had those guns, he would have just used a knife and killed a handful of people?
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