Posts by Bart Janssen
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Legal Beagle: A (non-)submission on the…, in reply to Robert Singers,
Legally purchasing a weapon offers an opportunity to inspect who has a weapon
hahahahahahahahahahaha
Oh that’s so funny.
When one of the biggest gun sellers in New Zealand is a convicted gun smuggler who committed federal crimes in the US and spent two years in jail for them?
Our current system failed.
Now we get a new system.
You want to play with lethal weapons then the choice is clear, leave New Zealand.
Oh BTW NRA playbook arguments have no sway here.
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Hard News: These things we must now change, in reply to Pete,
You folks won’t see it
I lived in the US for 3 years, half of that in Texas and Arizona. I've been to dinner at people's houses where they assured us that they made up for us in average gun ownership.
Because I worked with these people and socialised with them, I decided I needed to do some research on the whole gun thing.
That's why I already knew NZ had vastly more guns than most folks realised (including semiautomatics and high caliber "military style" ones).
I'm a scientist, I'm used to reading scientific literature. I'm used to digging deep into subjects and separating data from anecdote and speculation from facts.
Everything I read said the same thing. Gun ownership is terrible for society. And more significantly, gun ownership is a huge risk factor in suicide and harm to family. There are a couple of countries that are weird outliers (looking at you Switzerland) but overwhelmingly countries with more guns in private hands suffer more harm. Mostly to the gun owners and their families.
It's a public health issue.
So here's the thing, you seem convinced we're ignorant left-wing echo-chamber nuts. But all you present is your own anecdotes. You claim you represent law abiding folks whose guns would never harm anyone. But the data from NZ is the same as anywhere else - if you own a gun you are hundreds of fold more likely to harm someone than if you don't own a gun. That alone should give you pause. That the people likely to be harmed are yourself or your loved ones should terrify you.
There are legitimate reasons to own a gun and legitimate reasons to even own a high powered semi-automatic.
BUT the number of people who own guns in New Zealand is far higher than is legitimate or reasonable.
AND the number of guns they own is far higher than is legitimate or reasonable*.
For simple public health reasons New Zealand needs far fewer guns. So few that registering and tracking them would and will be simple.
*note "collecting" is NOT reasonable when what you are collecting is a lethal weapon. Try Magic the Gathering if you want to collect something.
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Hard News: These things we must now change, in reply to andin,
and death visits
Death did visit, and I was still the same atheist I've always been.
Besides I hadn't had the salmon mouse anyway.
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Hard News: These things we must now change, in reply to Sacha,
+1 more
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For me the key thing here is that the decision of the chief censor, who BTW has a shit tonne of experience making these judgements, can be challenged in court.
IF you or others can make a strong case that his decision should be modified, then by all means do so in court. IF you are supported by the court then the ruling will be modified and that to me seems reasonable.
What the censor did do, again based on his considerable experience, was take out of general circulation a harmful document. Well not really, given the nature of the internet but that's another discussion.
Until such time as the court rules to the contrary, the chief censor has done what he can to remove an objectionable document.
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Fascinating discussion. I'm strongly reminded of discussions about toxins - the rule is that everything is toxic, it just depends on the dose. And the same thing kept coming up here - it's the dose that's important for the effect.
The obvious problem is that without good trials you can't get a handle on the dose or worse find out if dose is different for different people.
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Hard News: These things we must now change, in reply to Russell Brown,
it seems evident they’ve lied about it
This does seem to be the new National Party normal.
Just lie, it doesn't matter how outrageous, just lie and keep lying. It's weird.
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Just a comment about the journalists and reporters who have or have not been in Christchurch or those who were or were not presenting as usual.
These people are human too. And they are probably seeing much more detail than the public sees. My guess is that some folks just aren't able to cope. And they have families to care for as well. Your desire to see Hilary Barry in Christchurch is a nice compliment to her ability to connect with locals but it may be that very ability that makes it impossible for her to do it.
Empathy is a two edged sword.
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Thanks Russell.
I think we really need to stop letting our racist uncles speak on the radio.
Somehow we need to convince our media that just because a racist opinion piece (and writer) generates a lot of clicks doesn't mean it's good for the medium.
We need to somehow get politicians that resist the easy racist line. Doing anything to get power in Wellington is not what we ask from our politicians.
And damn but haven't we got such a good example of what we really do want in Ms Ardern.
All those things will help. But we can't stop the way hatred infects and spreads through the internet. There will always be some who can't resist the easy line of blaming "others" for everything wrong in their lives.
And because of that we need to stop pretending guns are a normal part of life. We banned tom thumbs (firecrackers for those too young). We can ban rapid fire guns tomorrow and all the accessories that make DIY possible.
But to be honest I really don't see why we can't get rid of them all. Surely we can use some other technology for pest control or at the very least make their use the exception rather than the rule.
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The thing I find disappointing about marijuana prohibition is that it means there is almost no quality research done on either social effects or medical effects.
That leaves us with anecdote dominating the discussions.
We really know relatively little about how cannabinoids in marijuana affect the body and brain. What is clear is that the cannabinoids we make ourselves play an important role in brain development. But given their importance in brain development and the prevalence of marijuana use you would expect much more research on the subject. But making it illegal has crippled research in the area. This is a good if slightly long read.
As for the nonsense being spouted about the potential harms of decriminalisation or [sharp intake of breath] legalisation ... wittering is such a good word.