Hard News: When that awful thing happens
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Oh, I know this one: mostly in bodies of water, right?
Chowder.
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Where do you stand on killing possums, goats, deer, rabbits, stoats and feral cats, ConorJoe?
And I also have no problem with hunting when the result is either the culling of noxious species* or some very tasty sausages. And generally it's good when people enjoy their jobs. But people (mostly blokes) who enjoying killing for its own sake with so much relish ... scare me.
* Yes, I know that most of the noxious species in this country wouldn't be here if they hadn't been introduced for hunters in the first place. -
Now duck shooting season....
One dresses in camo, hides,
One sounds like a duck.....
One shoots. -
Sorry, thread moving too fast. Giovanni, I don't want to get into a prolonged diuscussion about diet either, but large parts of the world's population are and have been vegetarian for ages - and not just because they can't afford a steak or three. Andin's right about the agriculture as the dominant source of food. Not malnourished either - if anything, it's pretty clear that euro diets have too much nutrition for the lifestyles we live - unless you're hunting, farming and raising a dozen children every day, of course.
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Sofie, there is a haiku hiding in there :-)
Tom Beard, you're right. We need to deal to these introduced pests unless we want to end up sharing these islands with 500 million possums and not a lot else, but it is scary to take pleasure in the whole deal.
But I would like to hear what Conor has to say on the subject too, so I hope he/she is still there.
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Oh bejeebers, you are all missing the point, dwelling on the sensationalist parts of this story and glossing over the real crime here. Did the cops find that dangerous canabis that was threatening the entire neighbourhood?
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Ok, keep your hair on. (thought that was Craig for a minute)
Oh, I don't want to disappoint you Sofie. I've just listened to Greg O'Connor's frankly loathsome performance on Nine To Noon, and I (once more) wish the opportunistic fact-free thug would eat shit and die. Apparently, Len Smee is dead because of those horrible people in the public and media who think Police should be subject to scrutiny and criticism. Oh, and extra shit points for using Smee's open grave as a bully pulpit to say its time for everyone to have tasers and those who argued differently are stupid cop haters.
Meanwhile, what the hell is Lynn Freeman doing? The toxic levels of bullshit that were allowed to pass unquestioned must be in breech of multiple laws concerning the storage and disposal of biowaste.
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Eye witness accounts say the LAV may even have returned fire when recovering Len Snee's body. Surely this is possibly the MOST unusual aspect of this seige?
Totally. The sight of those armoured vehicles tooling around suburban streets really should be setting off some alarm bells, but the media seem more interested in stories about cuddly little police dogs. This was a massive police overreaction sparked by a bungled drugs raid. Doesn't anyone else find the trend towards militarized policing in this country just a little scary?
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Re. statistics: the whole "holiday weekend road toll" bugs me for similar reasons.
Like "Living in Iraq", we get this from the police and the NZH:
The Killing Fields -
Just thought it might be a nice place to mention that events like this are why in the first instance I like to treat the police with respect.
Bart: Just for the record, I have enormous respect for the Police. I have very little for their union mouthpiece.
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Good piece Russell.
I was one of those caught within the cordon until Friday Morning when the Police let me sneak out. I hope I'm never in a position of having to listen to talk back radio again; so many ill informed experts. "Just burn the place down" was a popular one.
Note to Civil defence though: You have a website, so, rather than using this facility to tell me that some cordons have been lifted and to listen to the radio to find out which streets can be accessed, why not just put this info on your website so we don't all have to listen to ads for Mitre 10 on 18 different stations. -
Further: we section parts of unfarmed land off, call it reserves and forests and then good keen men and their sons go in their with personal arsenals and dogs and keep up the killing.
ConorJoe, bad timing, my daughter just spent the weekend with her grandfather, learning to shoot. Shall I have her locked away before she goes berko with bloodlust, or do I need to protect her from rampaging generalisations?
Where do you stand on killing possums, goats, deer, rabbits, stoats and feral cats, ConorJoe?
Said grandfather is a pest control officer. You know, keeping the gulags safe from being over-run by fluffy bunny wabbits and TB-carrying possums. Well, that and actually protecting the enviroment by keeping down possums pigs and deer in native bush. You know, those fenced-off bits with the bloodlust...
Because of their time with him, my children have more respect for and understanding of firearms than their peers, for whom guns are just things on telly. This experience bears absolutely no resemblance at all to my own experience of ex-army guys with caches of illegal weaponry.
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Please Craig get the name right.
In the Disney remake of Peter Pan, when Smee tells Hook that shooting a man in the middle of his cadenza isn't good form,
Here
It was, actually Mr. Snee. -
Sorry, thread moving too fast. Giovanni, I don't want to get into a prolonged diuscussion about diet either, but large parts of the world's population are and have been vegetarian for ages - and not just because they can't afford a steak or three.
The historical viability of vegetarianism is debated. It's never been that widespread - to this day a minority of Indians are vegetarian, and a majority of them are chronically undernourished. Where it has worked, it has been in limited pockets of extreme wealth - some medieval religious orders for instance that possessed a whole lot of land, farmed by indentured servants. They did just fine (and still consumed fish!).
Of course you're right that nowadays in the rich west it is a very viable and indeed healthy diet. No question about that.
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This was a massive police overreaction sparked by a bungled drugs raid.
No, it was a massive police operation sparked by one man being shot in cold blood and three others critically wounded -- and guided by the knowledge that the shooter had a freaking arsenal.
And in what sense was the original search "bungled", Caleb? The officers went to the house unarmed, were let in and were talking to one of occupants in what appears to have been a low-key fashion when the shooting started. Would it have been "bungled" if the same thing had happened during a follow-up to a domestic violence complaint?
Do you want to have a wee think about who is actually to blame here?
Doesn't anyone else find the trend towards militarized policing in this country just a little scary?
In this case, no, not at all -- and I don't think this makes a "trend" either. This was a guy the police by then knew had high-powered rifles and explosives, and he'd been continuing to fire on police officers and into neighbours' houses.
It was an armoured vehicle that allowed them to retrieve Len Snee's body under fire. I can't see the point of risking anyone else's life on the basis that an armoured vehicle might unnerve some people.
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< quote>I hope I'm never in a position of having to listen to talk back radio again; </quote>
I thought Andrew Fagan and Karen Hay on Radio Live were very sane about it all. And the callers weren't of the idiot variety, perhaps they were all over at Newstalk ZB.
but ours is really the first or second generation tops that can get away with foregoing meat altogether without being undernourished.
I thought that the Jains in India have been at it for over 3000yrs.
But whatever there is really no need to hunt for meat anymore in NZ with anything other than a zipzap card. -
I have very little for their union mouthpiece.
Agree 100% Craig.
The arseholes using the death of a policeman and the death of Molinaar to pursue their own political agenda make me just go arggh!
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Craig, I've just deleted your last post. I won't disagree with you about O'Connor, but your way of expressing your point was unacceptable.
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Guns ... the problem is guns - not because people shoot them or hunt with them .... but because people fetishise them - personally I blame the crazy 'merkins preaching from their silly 2nd amendment - we don't have one (we have better ways to overthrow our government - like voting - it even works from time to time).
The person who owns a couple of hunting weapons, carefully locks them away, keeps the ammunition somewhere else, has the right license from the police isn't a problem - the guy (and they are all guys) with the house full of guns and explosives who's whole life revolves around them is being anti-social, wont get the license and (as we've seen a few times now) bears watching.
I guess the really scary thing is that he managed to obtain all this stuff without a license - I realise he swiped some from the army - but one would think that they would be keeping an eye on their stuff - have they not noticed that a bunch of it is missing? did they call in the police?
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I have to admit that I tended to heavily filter "input" WRT to events in Napier because it was obvious all the usual emotive rubbish would be trotted out yet again. I don't think I'm desensitized to the fact of the shootings and the consequent pain and loss. But I am becoming desensitized to the media hysteria that follows on. Particularly as so often what we being told today proves to be rubbish later.
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This action by the police and use of military kit was totally justified.
Like the bomb robot, so too the LAV was a useful tool, used correctly.Had they opened fire with the 50cal or tried to knock the house down with the LAV. That wouldn't have been acceptable.
Tragic as this last weekend was. I do hope we keep our unarmed police force.
There are about 100 work-related fatal injuries in New Zealand every year.
94% of these deaths occur in men.
The “agriculture, forestry and fishing” industry has the highest number of fatal work-related injuries (39 a year).
30% of all work-related fatal injuries are traffic related and happen while people are working or commuting.
Deaths from work-related injury are primarily due to: traffic accidents (31 deaths)
machinery-related accidents (17)
water transport accidents (10)
being struck by falling objects (10)
falls (7).http://www.nohsac.govt.nz/bodireport/index.php?section=sec5:s1:p007:
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The police went to Jan's house to help with the 'war on drugs" , because apparently cannabis is killing the very fabric of our society
...what they found was a hothead with an arsenal that begs belief.
1) stop policing class c drugs
2) start policing guns.This is not a criticism of the police, it's our poor laws.
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But whatever there is really no need to hunt for meat anymore in NZ with anything other than a zipzap card.
Yeah, and there's no need to do other outdoor activities such as skiing, tramping, or birdwatching either. People do these things because they are fun, not because they are the most efficient way. And people hunt because they enjoy it, and because they enjoy eating the meat.
Try watching Hunting Aotearoa on MTS sometime (which is produced by my brothers, so I suppose I'm going in to bat for the whanau on this), and you'll see that the hunters are simply people who enjoy hunting.
Given the number of firearms in this country - 1.5 to 2 million by some estimates - does anyone else suspect that we have a relatively low incident rate ? I tend to conccur with Emma's point that the vast majority of firearms users are very responsible.
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This is not a criticism of the police, it's our poor laws.
Yes. Much as I might disagree with the current legal status of cannabis, these officers were sent out to do a job, and all appearances are that they were doing it in a reasonable fashion when they were shot.
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I tend to conccur with Emma's point that the vast majority of firearms users are very responsible.
Canadians own more guns per capita than people in the US, and yet their crime rate is paltry in comparison. (Yes, I watch films made by Michael Moore. So sue me.)
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