Today’s
headlines in Christchurch, New Zealand is: someone has run amok on 5th
Avenue, New York.
Yet another
so-called massacre – only this time one victim qualifies as a massacre.
Nine injured,
mostly ironically by stray police fire.
I am sorry –
I don’t care.
Heartless
perhaps, but America reaps what it sows.
Allowing
paranoid, nut-jobs access to high-powered guns designed to kill humans– this is
what you get.
America is
the epicentre, black-hole for the paranoid.
Doomsday
preppers and Far-Right Militia is a North Dakota real-estate agent’s prime clientele.
Yes, we
have nutters in New Zealand.
Yes, we
have had massacres like the 14 people killed in Aramoana in 1990.
But we as a
country did something in the wake of these mass shootings.
1.)
N.Z
began registering and vetting the owners. A police liaison officer visits the
house of any prospective gun-owner. If they see him dressed in camo’s pawing
through his collection of Soldier of Fortune there’s no way he’ll get access to
a legal weapon. Gun licences can and do get revoked. No licence: no gun, no
ammo.
2.) We
banned military style weapons. Only collectors can own a hand-gun.
New Zealand
does have a gun culture, yet we live in a country where our police force is largely
unarmed.
Kiwi’s love
the outdoors, hunting etc but even the most ardent gun-owner here sees why we
need to restrict access, have weapons locked away etc.
We don't live in mortal fear of our neighbours, see the need to arm ourselves in 'self defence', build bunkers in the bush, fear our government is a front for left-wing aliens etc.
Clearly New Zealand has far fewer paranoid people than The United States.
Mind-you every other Western Country can say the same.
If American’s
can’t introduce common-sense gun-control, I for one don’t feel sorry for them
when I hear or see another massacre.
1 comment:
Oh, but we can't possibly admit that our policy decisions have consequences. If we ever did that, we might be forced to admit that 9/11 was largely the fault of our own bad choices (we, after all, are the ones who armed Osama bin Laden and set up his organization, back under Reagan, and then gave him the best possible recruiting tools by letting Israel control our foreign policy ever since), and that would force us to admit that maybe our military is entirely out of control and doing us nothing but harm.
Then again, the chances of the average American being introspective and analytical enough to do that are approximately nil, so maybe pointing this stuff out is safe after all.
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