Monday 18 March 2019

Guns and roses

Both have been selling fast over the weekend. Florists have run out of stock as people have poured in wanting flowers to place at the various sites of remembrance around the country, mostly outside local mosques. The most prominent site nationally is along the railings of the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, on the other side of Hagley Park from the Al Noor mosque where most people died - 50 of them now, since the discovery of another body as the police sorted through what must have been a scene of ghastly chaos. 

And, disappointingly, guns have also been being snapped up as people rush to get in before the laws are tightened here about registration and licensing, and semi-automatics are banned. (Apparently the machine guns are claimed to be necessary by hunters culling wild goats. Since I've never heard of massive herds of goats here needing to be mown down, to me that suggests a lack of skill in the hunter, who needs a stream of bullets to be sure of hitting individual goats. Case closed.)


The flowers outnumber the guns, though. Let's keep it that way.

UPDATE: 50 dead; time from first 111 call to arrest of the shooter - 21 minutes; time from shooting to banning of semi-automatic guns in NZ - 6 days.

2 comments:

the queen said...

Why how odd. Machine guns are effectively banned here, because of the price and the extensive background checks. And you use them to mow down sheep? I mean, sheep don’t fight back. Seems excessive.

TravelSkite said...

Let's separate the sheep from the goats. Our economy was built on sheep, we won't hear a word said against them. Goats were introduced, like so many, many species, for hunting and have flourished in this cushy environment and made a nuisance of themselves. They do need controlling.

We've been slack about guns, though. Turns out it's been pretty easy to get a gun licence here, and only owners are registered, not the guns themselves. Huge loophole.

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