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+--- Thread: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand (/showthread.php?tid=13311)
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RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - Bob Schroeck - 03-18-2019
Bets on how long until the narrative they're pushing changes to stories about how this good Kiwi boy was driven insane by the presence of filthy foreigners in his pristine homeland?
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - Black Aeronaut - 03-18-2019
(03-18-2019, 03:17 PM)Matrix Dragon Wrote: Why the eye rolling?
Because it's just typical that it's the news outlets that are owned by That Crowd that are trying to rationalize away this whole thing. Sorry that I wasn't clear about that.
Meanwhile, the New York Times is starting to try to zero in on what's really important: the big how's and why's.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/world/asia/new-zealand-shooting-jacinda-ardern.html
Apparently, this man had more guns than what was known of in official record. And while one side wants to push for a blanket ban on all semi-automatics, another takes the far more sane consideration that absolutely all weapons sales must be recorded and logged in a government database.
EDIT:
(03-18-2019, 03:40 PM)Bob Schroeck Wrote: Bets on how long until the narrative they're pushing changes to stories about how this good Kiwi boy was driven insane by the presence of filthy foreigners in his pristine homeland?
Sucker bet. From the sound of things, they're already trying to pave the way for that narrative.
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - Matrix Dragon - 03-18-2019
Keep in mind Bob, the shooter was Australian, committing the attack in Nz because of easier access to firearms, a larger relative Muslim population, and the fact they'd never experienced an attack like this before (in fact, he killed more people than last years entire murder count for the country) I'm talking about how the Australian media is trying to reframe the narrative, not NZ.
As for NZ gun laws? As an Aussie, I've got no problem with them banning semi autos if they so choose. At the sam time, they've been debating and refining their gun laws for over a decade, so it's not actually a panicked rush job when they do vote on it.
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - ECSNorway - 03-18-2019
I've disagreed with a lot of people here about a lot of things. But anyone who can laugh and smile and enjoy themselves while killing people - no matter who the victims are - is clinically insane.
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - SilverFang01 - 03-19-2019
This cartoon goes straight to the point: https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2019/mar/18/welcome-to-the-latest-edition-of-its-never-ever-white-peoples-fault
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - robkelk - 03-19-2019
Government of Canada pulled social media ads for 3 days after New Zealand attack
Maybe that will get the social media platforms to notice how poorly they've been behaving... maybe. Maybe the ads should have been pulled by more groups, for longer.
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - SilverFang01 - 03-19-2019
(03-19-2019, 07:38 AM)robkelk Wrote: Government of Canada pulled social media ads for 3 days after New Zealand attack
Maybe that will get the social media platforms to notice how poorly they've been behaving... maybe. Maybe the ads should have been pulled by more groups, for longer.
It’s a good first step.
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - robkelk - 03-22-2019
The Register: Our amazing industry-leading AI was too dumb to detect the New Zealand massacre live vid, Facebook shrugs
To be fair, they stopped 1.2 million out of 1.5 million posts - an 80% success rate. That said:
a) An 80% success rate obviously isn't good enough any more.
b) There were 1.5 million attempted uploads? That can't have all been from one account.
CBC Analysis: New Zealand promised and delivered a gun ban. Here's why the U.S. can't do the same
tl;dr: The NRA won't let it happen.
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - Black Aeronaut - 03-22-2019
*Sighs*
You people lend the NRA too much credit in this case.
Part of it is the culture in general. Even if the Federal Government offered a buyback program, people are not going to want to comply. And to be honest, I'd agree with them. It's penalizing the law abiding citizens all because a few people can't keep their dicks in their pants, metaphorically speaking.
And let me assure you, bans of this sort won't curb violence as effectively as you might like. The Boston Marathon Bombing is blatant evidence of this - anyone with even just a little bit of skill could have made those bombs as long as they're patient, can pay attention to detail, and have steady hands. (Which are also things that are required to use guns effectively, surprise surprise.)
Where we are having a lot of trouble with the NRA, on the other hand, is in enacting sensible regulation that does not infringe on anyone's rights. And I worry that if they keep this up, the pendulum is gonna swing back hard and it's going to hurt a lot when it does.
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - SilverFang01 - 03-22-2019
I debated whether to include articles about NZ government ‘s actions regarding guns but decided against it because we already had a very long thread dedicated to gun control and feared it might derail the thread.
I will say this: the government acted decisively and in a timely manner contrary to the way it is done in the states every time one of these events happens. They opened debate on it and will be discussing how to proceed instead of just waiting until the news cycle moves on. Even saw some posts joking that New Zealand got “thoughts & prayers” wrong.
@blackaeronaut: I think you are being too hasty in judging the effectiveness of whatever measures New Zealand decides to adopt. I think that some in Australia, Canada, and Britain thought that these measures would do nothing and time has proven that while not perfect they’ve been effective in curbing further incidents.
The NRA is a target because they have been the single greatest obstacle to gun control measures and have even ensured that the issue cannot be studied scientifically. And also we should not be afraid to do what is needed because of the delicate fee-fees of gun owners. We have been doing that already and we are no closer to try to solve the issue than before.
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - SilverFang01 - 03-22-2019
'We are one': New Zealanders observe Muslim call to prayer
A good way to tell that asshole and his cohorts to go fuck themselves sideways with a cactus.
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - Black Aeronaut - 03-22-2019
Only time will tell at this point. While I have faith in humanity to rise above, I also am very well aware of how horrific human beings can be.
Until hate and misery have been stamped out, there will always be a risk of violence in some manner. And I ask: how far are you willing to go? Think of it as a questioning in the mode of the Socratic Method. What rights and liberties are you willing to give up for security that isn't really there? You can eliminate all kinds of paths for violence to transpire. And yet, even in the most restrictive of settings (e.g.: Japan), it still happens.
(The only reason why violence is not even more prevalent in Japan is the social tick about suicide being a convenient way out, thus absolving them of any guilt or shortcoming. Trust me, were it otherwise, we'd be seeing a very different picture.)
(Oh, and the PM Abe recently had to introduce legislation to the Diet: no more corporal punishment for children by anyone. Not even their parents. Because, evidently, there actually IS a child abuse problem in Japan. Whodathunkit? That there'd be an issue with people expressing themselves violently in such a repressed society? </s>)
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - Matrix Dragon - 03-22-2019
Speaking as a citizen of a country that implemented strong gun control laws, it's not a 100% fix. Nothing ever will be. But it was definitely the right choice, and we've seen the benefits of it since then. And congratulations to New Zealand for taking steps to counter a potential threat after only one mass shooting.
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - SilverFang01 - 03-24-2019
The NRA is trying to inject itself into the gun control debate currently going on in New Zealand and was told to “fuck off”.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/oceania/bugger-off-nz-ex-police-minister-tells-national-rifle-association-20190322-p516hw.html
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - robkelk - 03-24-2019
As near as I can tell from a quarter-hour Wikipedia walk, the second amending document to the current Constitution of New Zealand is the "Imperial Laws Application Act 1988", which deals with the line of succession of the Sovereign. So, if I'm right, only one person has second amendment rights: the Prince of Wales.
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - Rajvik - 03-24-2019
Silverfang the likely reasoning for that action is that you have politicians stateside pointing at NZ pulling this gun grab and saying that this is what we need to do. Quite frankly, if it does happen it will be the straw that breaks the camel's back in that "when you pry it from my cold dead hand" way
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - Dartz - 03-24-2019
Well, the majority of NZ gun owners seems fairly OK with it.
Last referendum we had here was utterly infested by one side importing political supporters from the US. The Second Amendment was an exceptional touchstone for telling them apart.
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - Rajvik - 03-24-2019
Dartz, with all due respect, that is there. The US is a wholly different kettle of fish. We have a second ammendment for a reason, and while there are people on the extremes of both sides, its the people that don't have any feelings or standing either way that are going to be caught in the crossfire.
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - Matrix Dragon - 03-24-2019
We know it's a different kettle. Its a kettle where nothing gets done, children are murdered, survivors are called frauds and sent death threats, while everyone does precisely nothing to fix it. Mental health, gun control, simply teaching entitled white boys murder isn't the answer, it doesn't matter. You won't fix it. You'll just make excuses.
It might not solve the entire problem, but New Zealand is confronting the issue and doing something about it.
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - Black Aeronaut - 03-25-2019
Now that's enough of that.
We're not all like that, and it's not fair to the rest of us to paint us with that brush just because a bunch of miscreants have managed to infiltrate our government.
In an ideal setting, the Democrats SHOULD be offering the NRA an olive branch in the form of something like reopening the NFA registry to new registrations in exchange for permitting sensible regulation - not bans.
In an ideal setting, the Republicans would see the need for either a universal or a single payer healthcare system based on the needs of their constituents and not whoever's filling their campaign fund coffers.
In an ideal setting, we would have abolished the Electoral College long ago, and gone with the some other form of popular vote system. (Gone blank on the name - the one that lets you rank candidates that you'd most want to have the job, down to the least.)
There's bad karma on both sides, but trust me: a lot of us didn't ask for this. The popular vote should be indication enough.
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - Labster - 03-25-2019
There are a few ballot ranking systems. The one I'm most familiar with is called Single Transferable Vote (with fractional transfer), which in the case that you're only electing one candidate reduces to Instant Runoff Voting.
I have a good deal of experience in it, as it was what my friends in the Green Party got us to use for the UC Davis student council. It was honestly pretty great -- we had people representing all slates elected, with majority rule and minority representation, instead of the swingy sweeps we had before. And honestly it was predictable, to the extent that I was able to run a mock election and prognosticate 5 or 6 out of 6 right based on each candidate's constituencies.
As a low level party official, I'll point out that the Democratic Party's opinion is that the current system is best, except that more people need to be encouraged and/or allowed to vote. But personally, I'd rather see us forming coalition governments instead of trapped in this cycle of us versus them. We agree, of course, that the President should be popularly elected -- but of course that means we wouldn't see another Republican president for a generation.
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - SilverFang01 - 04-13-2019
Well, they went ahead and did it: New Zealand Parliament votes 119-1 to ban assault weapons
https://www.vox.com/2019/4/10/18304415/new-zealand-gun-control-mosque-shootings-assault-weapons-ban
With only one vote against (funny, I didn’t think Mitch McConnell was allowed to vote in NZ’s parliament
) The New Zealand government has already expressed that this is just a first step and that they’ll fine-tune it while closing several loopholes in their existing statutes.
We know by bitter experience that “thoughts and prayers” don’t work. Let’s observe how NZ’s approach does in real time.
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - robkelk - 04-13-2019
According to the article, New Zealand is coming into line with Australia - which has had a decrease in firearms violence since they adopted similar rules two decades ago.
So, yes, let's see whether Australia was a statistical fluke or a reasonable indicator, by repeating the experiment.
RE: Neo-nazis conduct a terrorist attack in New Zealand - Matrix Dragon - 04-13-2019
(04-13-2019, 11:11 AM)SilverFang01 Wrote: With only one vote against (funny, I didn’t think Mitch McConnell was allowed to vote in NZ’s parliament
The guy that didn't is apparently the crazy outlier that votes against almost everything because government regulation is always pure evil as far as he's concerned.