Soon after the Orlando club massacre hit the wires, the killer was identified: a single agent, the son of an Islamic preacher/activist, and an obsessively homophobic young man. Quickly, an unedifying culture war has started. Conservatives want to frame the event as Islamist terrorism whose victims happen to be LGBT. Some on the other side want to frame it as an anti-LGBT hate crime, whose perpetrator happens to be Islamist.
The more accurate response would be that this represents a fusion of both. Orlando is a terrorist act and an American hate crime — similar to Elliot Rodgers’ killing of women in the Isla Vista massacre, or Dylann Roof’s massacre of nine people in a Charleston church. It is the point at which the distinction between terrorism, social hate crime and nihilist killing breaks down entirely.
That is a nightmare for the United States — and a warning for us. The US now has laws designed for 18th-century guns in a society with 21st-century weaponry, and many young men who feel no part of any era at all and are looking for someone to blame for it.
Having got rid of this problem here, we should have zero tolerance for those who want to reintroduce it. We have already seen a sleazy deal by the Abbott government permitting the Adler rapid-fire shotgun in. These should be reversed by the next government, with opposition support, and sales frozen. Indeed, if something worthwhile could come from this nothing of an election, it might be a statement, from past prime ministers and present party leaders, affirming a common stand on the laws that exist, against their further erosion. Most of what has been promised over the past six weeks will never happen. All the more reason to reaffirm and renew something that together, as a nation, we got absolutely right.
Absolutely spot on.
Turnbull is having his Facebooky type debate on Friday. We should queue up to ask him if he will reverse this poisonous law (even if Leyonhjelm gets re elected, god forbid). Ask him again and again until he gives us an answer. Oh, and Shorten too if he’s on that panel-thingy.
You think something like this could occur with a lever action gun? Really? Have you ever used one? Do some research before jumping to conclusions.
In a plural society like Australia and US, where presumption of innocence is still the ideal of serious-minded law enforcement authorities (here as in US), there must be the strictest gun control. That is the lesson of the Orlando hate crime. We have haters in Australia, people who fit that same profile. They cannot be locked up, but guns need to be kept out of their hands. We need even tougher gun control than we have now. Far too many ‘sporting’ guns are being allowed into Australia. Tony Kevin
Knives kill more people in Australia than guns! http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide/weapon.html
The government must regulate the use of kitchen knives, fishing knives and pocket knives whilst they are at it. Mandatory locks on cutlery drawers!
Just because you are scared of guns doesn’t mean we need stricter gun laws than exist. Personally I think they are just right. As other posters have highlighted, the Adler is not a military weapon, and not semi-automatic, so what is the issue, fear?
Considering in what esteem Abbott held John Howard, it’s surprising he was willing to weaken the latter’s effective gun legislation. Neither Shorten nor Turnbull would be thick-headed enough to pose with a gun – unlike Abbott in his Boys’ Own PR stints with the Australian military.
Yes, let’s hear if either leader will answer definitively on the Adler rapid-fire.