In The News

[Local Trouble]

I always thought of NZ as the kind of place to go to get away from this kind of thing. Now I know the world really has gone to shit.

[[cancerblack]]

Possibly an ongoing situation. The main guy was in court this morning and there was some kind of knife incident and a building cleared with bomb units arriving.

[Local Trouble]

"Prime minister Jacinda Ardern has said the nation's gun laws will change after it emerged the suspect had a firearms licence. She said he began legally stockpiling weapons in 2017 and had two semi-automatic weapons and two shotguns."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2019/mar/15/christchurch-shooting-injuries-reported-as-police-respond-to-critical-incident-live

[[cancerblack]]

It's muddy there. He had a license but not the right type to get semi-autos, so there's still some confusion over it

[HuDaFuK]

I was under the impression NZ already had fairly strict gun control laws, although admittedly that was mostly an assumption.

I've no doubt things will change, much like they did in Australia.

[SiL]

NZ has much laxer gun laws than Australia. One of our states recently tried to use them of an example of how we could change our laws to allow more gun ownership; wonder if they'll say the same this year ...

[Gazz]

I'm reminded of conversations I've had with previous posters on this forum and others about how social media has nurtured hatred, and how allowing hate speech to pass under the umbrella of 'free speech' will ultimately lead to greater far more dire consequences. So much has gone unchecked by a certain audience because 'it's trolling'. Targeted hate speech online; it's just for the lulz! Bomb threats made against public figures; it's just trolling. Guy shoots up a mosque quoting those same shitpost memes? '...poor pewdiepie'

But nothing will change. In a short time (likely right now, actually) those same shitposters and edgelords will turn this prick into another 'dark knight', just as they have Anders Breivik and Elliot Rodgers. Oh, and those social media influencers that have been peddling 'The Great Replacement' for youtube profits have blood on their hands. They don't get to disown these atrocities.

[The Kurgan]

Oh, and those social media influencers that have been peddling 'The Great Replacement' for youtube profits have blood on their hands. They don't get to disown these atrocities.

This.

[[cancerblack]]

I was under the impression NZ already had fairly strict gun control laws, although admittedly that was mostly an assumption.

I've no doubt things will change, much like they did in Australia.

Hard to get registered to begin with, but no tracking of individual weapons.

Oh, and those social media influencers that have been peddling 'The Great Replacement' for youtube profits have blood on their hands. They don't get to disown these atrocities.

This.

Correct.

[Biomechanoid]

NZ has much laxer gun laws than Australia.

I read something similar on a web news source - Outside the US, New Zealand is one of the more lenient countries on guns. Which is ironic that in political forums I participate, many claim, "Shows you what good it does for countries like New Zealand,  to have such strict gun laws."

Misinformation really does rule the internet.

[[cancerblack]]

As i said upthread, registering for a license is very strict, and the categories of license dictate the type of weapons you can have. But individual weapons and accessories are not tracked or registered beyond initial point of sale, meaning someone like this guy can get a rifle with limited mag capacity, restricted to certain types of stocks, accessories etc, but then go out and buy the larger mags and alternate parts to convert it off some guy in a parking lot without the authorities having a clue.

[Predaker]

We'll have to wait for more details to emerge, but hopefully more people don't become casualties. What a waste of life.

As I said with Smollet, even before it broke that it was a fake. Let's wait for details. We need to see where things flesh out and see where the pieces lie.

...what?

[PsyKore]

I was really sickened by this. Brings back memories of Port Arthur. I feel like a lot of hatred and racism comes from the click-baiting media and idiot politicians which Australia seems to always put in the spotlight, as well as breeding in social media. In Australia I feel like there is definitely an underlying racism/phobia in the country which permeates from those things and it sort of has a trickle down effect.

Jacinda Ardern is right in that we should forget this guy's name and never let him have any notoriety. He should remain a nobody locked in a cell forever.

[SiL]

I love that they're considering not charging him on terrorism counts just to f**king spite him. If they make it a terrorism charge, the court case will run longer and give him more of an opportunity to use the case as a platform to spew his ideology. With murder charges, they only have to prove he intended to kill someone -- which is much easier given the circumstances, resulting in a much faster case.

It's not like he'll be getting any kind of a lenient sentence. He's looking at 50-odd 1st degree murder charges. He's never seeing the outside of a prison again after this.

[LastSonofKrypton]

I was really sickened by this. Brings back memories of Port Arthur. I feel like a lot of hatred and racism comes from the click-baiting media and idiot politicians which Australia seems to always put in the spotlight, as well as breeding in social media. In Australia I feel like there is definitely an underlying racism/phobia in the country which permeates from those things and it sort of has a trickle down effect.

Jacinda Ardern is right in that we should forget this guy's name and never let him have any notoriety. He should remain a nobody locked in a cell forever.

One of the disgusting realities of these kind of events outside of the act itself is the way the media, and people in general both left and right react.  They use the tragedy to push their own agenda, whether it be anti- muslim sentiments of the right or anti-white male rhetoric of the left, and it becomes the focus of the debate, with both sides making blanket statements and generalisations forgetting the fact that 50 men, woman and children were just murdered.  It's disgusting, these people don't care about the tragedy, just whatever political points they can score for their own side. 

Lock this monster in a cell with no windows forever and scrub his name from everything