I used to do the same thing as a teenager. I remember watching videos on ogrish.com occasionally back then.

I just don't really see any value in that anymore. I know how ****ed up people can be. I don't need to see more videos. The evidence is already too abundant.

It's a universal problem though. The Europeans have a problem with their far right who are equally if not worse than our far right. The major difference is our far right has easier access to fire power.

Thought I'd give a quick explanation of how this Fraser Anning guy managed to be a Senator, I've seen stuff around like "he only got 19 votes" which is true but misleading.

The Australian Senate is elected on a proportional-representation system, I'll skip the details, but it is supposed to end up looking like a microcosm of Australian society. Like, if 5% of people vote socialist, then if the system is working well, the Senate should end up being 5% socialist members.

Ballot papers look something like this:



You can either number parties above the line or individual candidates below the line. In this example, numbering that party 1 above the line is exactly equivalent to numbering the candidates under that 1,2,3, then the candidates under the above-the-line 2 would be 4,5,6,7 and so on. 95+% of voters number above the line.

In 2016, we had a rare "double dissolution" election, where the entire Senate goes up for election instead of the usual half-Senate election. This means the number of votes a candidate needs to be elected is half the usual amount. The Trumpist party One Nation got 5.5% of the vote nationwide, but in their stronghold of Queensland they got 9.2%. With preferences, this was enough to elect not just their figurehead, Pauline Hanson, but a second Senator as well. Initially this was a guy called Malcolm Roberts, but after he was caught up in the citizenship scandal, he was ruled ineligible for parliament. That meant that the next candidate on One Nation's list was elected - and that was Fraser Anning.

One thing to note is that being third on One Nation's list of candidates isn't really a sought-after job, because while the party has some support, they're also regarded with contempt by most of the country. You're permanently associating your name with them and there isn't any hope of getting anything out of it - under normal circumstances it would be impossible to be elected. One Nation clearly didn't vet the guy at all, because the first thing he did upon being elected was give the finger to One Nation and announce that he'd sit as an independent, which at the time I thought was pretty funny.

So what led to this was a confluence of factors:

- A double dissolution election, meaning people were getting elected from deeper in the party's depth chart
- An unusually strong performance from One Nation in Queensland, meaning they elected two Senators
- Ineligibility of their second candidate
- Their third candidate, who was just some guy they threw on the ballot to make up the numbers, turns out to be a legit Nazi.

If any of these factors weren't present, this doesn't happen. Anning did only get 19 votes, but that's very normal given his position on the ballot paper. People are voting for parties, not candidates. The story here is that 10% of people in Queensland tried to vote for Trumpism and got Nazism instead.

I was curious about CP's reaction:

A difference without a distinction imo.

ChrisV - are the gun laws more lax in NZ than AUS or did this guy illegally amass an arsenal?

David Duke endorsed Trump.

This ties into the pewdiepie thing. It's all passed off as just edgy jokes to trigger the libs until someone shoots a mosque. Then they cheer and we find out these people were never really joking after all.

He had the guns legally and laws are more lax in NZ - semi-automatic rifles of the type he used are more or less blanket banned here, and unlike Australia it's legal to own unregistered guns in NZ. There's a good article on it from Australia's national broadcaster here.

There will be some kind of stricter gun control enacted there for sure, there will be bipartisan support. It's not an ideological issue there.

I mean you can only ban so much. Farmers and other country people will ALWAYS need to have guns to defend their animals and land from other animals that prey on em and to supress varmints from eating their crops.

Dont get me wrong, this shooting event sucks, but when i hear that NZ prime minister pander to the media and her future voters with "we will change gun laws" is super asinine.

pretty sure here in canada we have similar strict gun laws already as NZ and it did nothing to stop a mosque attack in quebec 2 yrs ago. I think he killed 6 people? and we didnt try change them again, because its stupid.

Stricter background checks do not change the ability of farmers to get a 30/30 for varmint killing.

They'll ban semi-automatic rifles with large magazines. There's no reason for anyone to own a weapon like that. Since Australia's 1996 gun control laws there has only been one attempted indiscriminate mass shooting (as opposed to targeted homicides, like family murder-suicides) - the Monash University shooting. The shooter unloaded one clip, killing two and injuring five, and was then tackled when he tried to change guns. He was subsequently found to be carrying 5 guns and two spare clips. If he'd had the type of weapon Martin Bryant had at Port Arthur (an AR-15) he would certainly have killed many more people.

Exactly. Well said Chris. I was brought up around guns and going shooting/spotlighting etc but there is zero reason for somebody to have a semi-automatic. I'd say the reason why this happened in NZ and not Australia is 100% due to the gun laws. I felt really sick last night when news came through.

Spotlighting is pretty much known as poaching here btw.

Oh right, I didn't realise that. Here it's just going shooting at night with a spotlight.

LOL wat?

https://www.animalsaustralia.org/iss...o_shooting.php

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-...e-life/9790636


ETA: JFC

I'm probably wrong but a cursory search of kangaroo hunting permits require someone to own a farm or something? Much like my 30/30 reference earlier?

Unban all the exiles and let them show their colors and link Mason to the thread. It would give him a new outlook.

When i was in my early twenties i worked processing film and one of the clients was the police department. I still remember some of those photos twenty something years later like it was yesterday. What made it even worse is i live in a small town so knowing what some of my neighbors were up to was eye opening. The wife and child beatings were in some ways worse then the suicides and bloody ones. I ended up quitting partly because of those. Could never watch stuff like this ever since and even graphic horror movies get to me.

When I worked in the mail room of an insurance company I had to copy a claim about a kid who had gotten crushed when he ran behind a dumpster to get a ball - right as a delivery truck backed into it.

The pictures were bad but missing the really gruesome stuff - mostly just a bloody dumpster after the fact. The worst was the psychology report that his two little brothers - who saw the accident - now basically would just cling to each other and were a mess.

I mentioned the file to the claims adjuster - she brushed it off that the family was just digging for money. Obviously she had become completely callous to this kind of thing, most likely racism as well. I crossed claims adjuster off the list of potential jobs right then.

Oh yeah - the kicker is that this happened because the store had a strict policy not to help guide the delivery drivers to the dock - for liability reasons. Murica.

Say what you want about Mexico and Central America - but no one dies because a store won't help a delivery driver back in over litigation concerns.

Bit of a derail here, but: There are two ways you can be permitted to shoot kangaroos - either as a commercial hunter, which requires a license, or if you own a farm, you can make an application that the numbers of kangaroos on your farm are threatening your livelihood, in which case you get a permit to cull them. Spotlighting, when done legally, is generally the latter. The connotation of the word is that it's non-professional hunting. People do it illegally too, of course. Also, laws are a lot laxer about shooting introduced pests like rabbits, foxes and so on.

I need a special stamp for fox (furbearer). It goes to hunting preservation etc. Coyote and fox can be hunted at night but spotlighting here is still illegal af.

Please keep in mind that I am talking about when I was a child. These events happened on friends properties which were extremely large expanses and it was not considered remotely abnormal. Kangaroos are considered a pest by many farmers and they are culled and then usually fed to dogs. I never witnessed cruel treatment of kangaroos. It was considered bad form to not shoot to kill an animal instantly. I wasn't very keen on shooting kangaroos myself as I didn't like when the kangaroo that was shot had a joey. Rabbits were my preference as they weren't native and were/are a huge pest. I find it really strange people being grossed out by hunting if they're meat eaters. Personally I think it's more humane then a lot of intensive farming and slaughtering that occurs. Apologies for the derail, I won't post anymore on this issue.

Gun control on islands 600 miles away from their nearest neighbors is probably more effective than in a country that borders the most heavily armed country on earth.

I like that Australia is chock full of the most lethal animals in the world and yet no one is allowed to own an assault rifle. **** me, I'm not going out there against those gigantic spiders and kangas and poisonous snakes without a mecha battlesuit.

SPOILER: HORRIFYING

So he killed six people as opposed to 49? And it did nothing?