Hard News: Te Qaeda and the God Squad
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Sacha, in reply to
Like this guy
Who, the article reports, had this lot:
two military flares, a smoke grenade, a thunderflash explosive, part of an anti-personnel mine, eight sticks of powergel explosive, a grenade launcher, and two military-style semi-automatic firearms.
I presume the court will be told why, but in the meantime that sure doesn't sound too harmless from here, no matter how friendly the guy is.
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Kracklite, in reply to
Actually, yes, I agree that people can be dragged into, indulge in radical movements due to an excess of testosterone or simple vileness, but there have been a lot of the activist community who were attacked because they were simply activists. "Activist" and "terrorist" are two different categories and as I know in Wellington, the police cracked down on activists using the pretext of suppression of terrorism and that is what I find disturbing. Suppression of actual terrorism, however incompetent it may be, is justifiable, but the fact is that they used this as a pretext to persecute activists, however wrong, naive, foolish they may be, is the most disturbing aspect of Operation 8.
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Kracklite, in reply to
I presume the court will be told why, but in the meantime that sure doesn’t sound too harmless from here, no matter how friendly the guy is.
That does disturb me, but using that as a pretext to suppress political dissent by people who do not use such things also disturbs me.
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Sacha, in reply to
the police cracked down on activists using the pretext of suppression of terrorism and that is what I find disturbing.
That sucks, sure.
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The courts don't seem to treat firearms offences all that seriously though, as long as the perpetrator is a white male without left-wing links.
This guy, whose offending (selling guns to (other) criminals) must have been at the very top end of the scale, got 21 months.
And this police employee got a discharge without conviction for having illegal machine guns hidden in his house.
Not to mention a certain right-wing blogger who keeps his gun license despite meeting several of the disqualifying criteria.
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DCBCauchi, in reply to
two military flares, a smoke grenade, a thunderflash explosive, part of an anti-personnel mine, eight sticks of powergel explosive, a grenade launcher, and two military-style semi-automatic firearms.
I presume the court will be told why, but in the meantime that sure doesn’t sound too harmless from here, no matter how friendly the guy is.
That sounds perfectly harmless to me. The collecting impulse is deeply strange. All sorts of people collect all sorts of things, out of a fascinated interest in the things themselves. For the things themselves, not to use them on some fantasy rampage.
I am no more nervous of this guy than I would be of a can opener collector if I were a tin of soup.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
That sounds perfectly harmless to me. The collecting impulse is deeply strange. All sorts of people collect all sorts of things, out of a fascinated interest in the things themselves. For the things themselves, not to use them on some fantasy rampage.
Except for the odd person who collects all those things and isn't "perfectly harmless" -- David Gray, for example. There are legitimate uses for power gel explosive, but it's not good stuff for anyone to "collect" and have lying around the house.
I am no more nervous of this guy than I would be of a can opener collector if I were a tin of soup.
That's an impenetrable metaphor ...
But there is no indication that this guy was talking about the violent use of the weapons he was obtaining, no.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
This guy, whose offending (selling guns to (other) criminals) must have been at the very top end of the scale, got 21 months.
Hmmm ...
And this police employee got a discharge without conviction for having illegal machine guns hidden in his house.
He will also lose his job, appropriately.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
I wonder does someone (some foreign entity) have a fibre splitter in our main fibre trunks somewhere?
Someone like Cisco perhaps?
They seem to be keen on appeasing governments... -
DCBCauchi, in reply to
I am no more nervous of this guy than I would be of a can opener collector if I were a tin of soup.
That’s an impenetrable metaphor …
Is it?
I imagine tins of soup would be extremely nervous about people wielding can openers with intent but not about can opener collectors. Just as I'd be extremely nervous about David Gray but not about a military paraphernalia collector per se.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I imagine tins of soup would be extremely nervous about people wielding can openers with intent but not about can opener collectors. Just as I’d be extremely nervous about David Gray but not about a military paraphernalia collector per se.
I imagine the trick would be knowing the difference.
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DCBCauchi, in reply to
I imagine the trick would be knowing the difference.
Quite. You wouldn't think it'd be that hard.
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Sacha, in reply to
military paraphernalia collector
I understand uniforms and even old weapons, but do they usually collect explosives as well?
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Sacha, in reply to
imagine the trick would be knowing the difference
And I'd rather they err on the side of caution when it's about things that can kill people.
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The whole thing now seems to come across as some kind of SLAPP.
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DCBCauchi, in reply to
I understand uniforms and even old weapons, but do they usually collect explosives as well?
I have a friend who is into these kind of mock battle games, kind of like a real-world computer game shoot-em-up. Like paintball, but I don't think they use paintballs, at least judging from the marks he's shown me. He's invested a lot of time and money into it, as people do with their hobbies and interests. It would not surprise me if he or some of his mates had some explosives as part of that, used carefully under strictly controlled conditions by suitably qualified people.
Apparently, these kind of games are big with the rozzers. They have all kinds of dodgy sounding scenarios they play (e.g. 'room clearances').
Even when he's been extremely drunk and very angry about something, I nor any of our other friends have ever been concerned about our personal safety because he plays these games (or for any other reason).
I don't share his interest, but that's all it is. A way to blow off steam after work.
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Sacha, in reply to
I have a friend who is into these kind of mock battle games
I've never heard of LARPers using explosives. Expensive swords and armour, yes.
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DCBCauchi, in reply to
I’ve never heard of LARPers using explosives. Expensive swords and armour, yes.
But this isn't swords and armour stuff. It's guns and explosives stuff. They spend a lot of time and money making it as realistic as possible. Whole sets and everything.
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Sacha, in reply to
Interesting.
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Don't get me wrong. I freaked out when he first pulled out these guns and battle armour he'd bought. It's pretty weird. Not scary but.
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DCBCauchi, in reply to
Interesting.
That was the great thing about our civilisation. Millions of people with large amounts of disposable income and an advanced industrial society in which to spend it.
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Just thinking, in reply to
And I'd rather they err on the side of caution when it's about things that can kill people.
Car Collector would be the most deadly, surely.
I have a friend who is into these kind of mock battle games, kind of like a real-world computer game shoot-em-up. Like paintball
- Not this guy I hope.
Paint Ballers and the Neo-Nazi crossover call themselves Survive Club.
http://www.surviveclub.org.nz/photo.aspx?path=News/181&caption=Recognise anyone here?
http://www.surviveclub.org.nz/photo.aspx?path=News/182&caption= -
I have no real objection if neo-nazis want to play paintball with real live ammo and high explosives, providing they do it in a suitably remote area, and leave the wounded to rot rather than troubling the medical system.
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Paul Campbell, in reply to
two military flares, a smoke grenade, a thunderflash explosive, part of an anti-personnel mine, eight sticks of powergel explosive, a grenade launcher, and two military-style semi-automatic firearms.
That sounds perfectly harmless to me. T
I guess it depends - it sounds like a scary bunch of things but .....
Flares, smoke grenade, thunderflash, grenade launcher (basically am empty tube) - all no less harmless than an old fashioned guy fawkes night .... or last Saturday night at Burning Man
bits of an anti-personal mine - depends on which bits I guess, could be as harmless as that empty deactivated hand grenade granddad brought back from the war
powergel - safe without detonators - useful on the farm ... but not a toy, and understandably scary to the powers that be
Assault rifles - well we have pretty well known laws about those (no excuses IMHO)
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DCBCauchi, in reply to
Recognise anyone here?
Ha ha. The very thing I asked.
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