You see, everyone in there is surprised because it happens in Australia, not USA.
Everyone is surprised because it happens there SO RARELY, because of strict firearm rules.
Watch the guy who disarmed one of the shooters
Real fucking hero. He was shot twice during the scuffle and was in surgery expected to survive.
His name is Ahmed al Ahmed. Found the footage of his relative being interviewed and he is named. Saw it early in Aussie news, can’t remember if it was 9 News or ABC (Australia Broadcasting)
Edit: updated link
Can’t believe the guts that must have taken. Absolute legend.
What no one seems to be asking is the obvious question: how the fuck did these attackers get hold of guns? This is Australia folks not fucking America. We have laws to stop exactly this. How, where and by whom were they circumvented? More importantly: how can we prevent this from happening again?
Hunting with firearms is not illegal in Australia. They are relatively common in rural areas, they have their use. All you need is someone stealing guns one way or another and then smuggling them to the city. It’s not like the police will stop you to rummage through your belongings… unless you drive like an absolute reckless imbecile.
I don’t think you can prevent this from happening again. You can definitely take measures to make it more difficult to happen again, ie. police cordoning an area where there is a religious gathering. But there is always a way. You can’t control everything. When it’s not guns it’s a car driving over people or explosives or poisoning or whatever.
You can get semi automatic hunting weapons relatively easily, same as in New Zealand.
The problem is, there’s enough people with a legitimate use case of firearms that banning them completely isn’t possible.
A cat C license (self loading) is a lot more difficult to get than a cat A,B licence. So far this has worked, no semi auto terrorist attacks since Port Arthur. Thank fuck these guys did not have semi auto weapons.
I honestly wouldn’t have much issue with them removing the cat C licence, effectively banning semi auto outside of military use. But it certainly has some legitimate use cases in feral animal control.
A pump shotgun is far more reliable than a semi-auto. Want to kill a bunch of people? I’d never trust a semi. Bring the pump.
Hell, for that matter I might pick one of my single shots. Takes less practice than a pump, cannot fail to send lead down range. I know that’s all counterintuitive. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, as they say. :)
SOURCE: Own 12 shotguns of all ages and sorts.
Yeah no shit mate. That’s why pump shotguns are also under a cat C licence here. The legislators weren’t stupid, they basically categorised things on fire rate and public danger.
The Adler lever actions are very questionable in my opinion. They are almost as fast. Though the one I tried would jam all the time. Lever actions like that weren’t a common thing in the 90’s so it slipped by for a while.
And saying that a bolt action is potentially worse than a semi auto is some full on American bulshit. Sure things can jam and go wrong, but in the worst case situation with aresholes like this firing into a dense crowd where aim doesn’t really matter, faster shooting is more casualties.
The legislators weren’t stupid
Sorry maybe I’m giving away my country of origin but this part here is really hard for me to wrap my head around. I have no prior experience with this concept to relate to. Please be patient with me. 🤔
Haha. We have plenty of moron politicians. But typically all our legislation is usually written by public servants with expert advice and lawyers, and even they get it wrong sometimes. The politicians direct what they want, but most of them have never written a law. I assumed it worked this way in most places.
Got two vintage bolt-action shotguns. Both suck, but they weren’t that great to begin with. Been wanting a lever action! Seems that would be about as fast as a pump? Never touched one. LOL, never seen one IRL.
I didn’t say a bolt-action was potentially worse? I did say that a pump is mostly better than a semi. I did say a single-shot is potentially worse than all of the above.
I know that doesn’t make sense, very counter intuitive. But I have never, not once, had a single-shot fail unless the load itself failed, and I have some truly shitty single-shots. I should add the caveat that the single-shot needs to eject the spent shell, or you’re really going to be slow.
Hard to explain unless one has the experience. With a single-shot you get into a rhythm; aim, fire, break, reload, fire, aim, fire, break, reload, fire. It’s easy to spaz out with a semi and loose all your ammo. When your shots are limited, you take the extra split second to aim, make it count.
Or, consider this, if we’re talking about mass causalities; what about reloading? There are techniques like “violin reloading”, or “combat loading” singles, that go fast, but take serious and continuous practice. If we were both challenged to send 10 shots downrange, on target, bet I could do better with a single shot. First 5? Ya got me, assuming you didn’t spaz out and spray lead all around. 10? I never stopped or hesitated, and I had the extra second to consider the situation and aim.
Anyway, if you ever make it to Florida, hunt me down and we’ll go to my little camp in the swamp. Have a friendly shoot!
All good mate, I mostly just try and stop the spread of misinformation on Aus gun laws. Most people don’t know much about them.
The leaver actions are fast. The main difference is that you can leave your finger on the trigger for a pump and are meant to take it off for the leaver action, though you could do it with your non trigger hand. People are also buying left handed bolt action shotguns to get around this, though it’s more awkward. All our shotguns have a capacity limit, usually 5 or less. It looks like these guys modified their barrel mags to hold more.
You’re not wrong about wasted ammo, reliability and reload speed, but you have to think about the worst case scenarios. Situation: close range, large dense crowd, shooter with an unreasonable amount of ammunition, and best luck in the world with no jams or reliability issues. That’s the formula for mass casualties. This is what our laws are effective at protecting against, primarily by limiting the rate of fire.
This is the exact question i asked my spouse when told it was in Australia. I was under the impression that their gun laws are fairly strict?
Their gun laws are strict, compared to America. But the notion that Europeans and other first-world citizens can’t have guns is far from the truth. Hell, some laws are looser. Most (all?) Europeans can buy a suppressor, and I gather those are mandated in some places, or at least you’re frowned upon for not having one.
One of my favorite GunTubers was visiting and interviewing in a central European gun shop (forget the country, sorry) and I was like, “Well, shit. They can buy about anything we can buy!”
America doesn’t have a gun problem. America has a culture problem. I could tell you a dozen stories of idiot Americans not understanding the laws we already have. Many of those idiots are dead or in prison.
They immediately labeled it a terrorist attack. In the US this would’ve been called Tuesday.
When was the last time Australia had a mass shooting before this?
No we’d call it a terrorist attack because the shooters are arab. Have you been paying attention the past 24 years?
Around 30 years ago in Port Arthur. I think 40 people were killed that day. It triggered our national strict gun laws, although they’re continually being watered down since we’ve been experiencing more gun violence in the last decade.
Does the lindt hostage situation count?
nice way you turned this Australian tragedy into an attack on the US.
Well you have 2 countries here, that had very similar laws on this specific topic until mass casualty events. One country completely overhauled their gun laws, while the other sent thoughts and prayers to the victims. It’s worth talking about what those differences have meant.
It’s worth talking about what those differences have meant.
it’s also worth talking about Five Eyes. What is Five Eyes you ask? I’m glad you asked!
The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an Anglosphere intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These countries are party to the multilateral UKUSA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence. Informally, “Five Eyes” can refer to the group of intelligence agencies of these countries.
Christchurch at least. But I’m sure there might have been something between. But just not daily/weekly like the US or middle east.
Isn’t Christchurch in New Zealand?
It is, though I believe the shooter was Australian, which may have been what the previous commenter was confused about.
I think you’re right. They aren’t just nasal Aussies no matter how close proximity they are. It sucks no matter where it happens. I hate that us Americans have gotten so desensitized to it. There’s definitely middle ground to work from on reducing mass murders including gun violence.
Close proximity. They’re about 1500 km apart according to this site https://outthere.kiwi/new-zealand-travel-guide/is-new-zealand-part-of-australia/
It’s ok, a majority of americans don’t know the difference between Aus and NZ.
True though I’m a pretty big fan of Lucy Lawless, Taika Watiti, and Jermaine Clement. I hold myself to a higher standard. 😆
At least 11 people were killed in a shooting targeting the Jewish community at Australia’s famous Bondi Beach, and 29 people were taken to the hospital.
A man believed to be one of the shooters has been killed, New South Wales Police said. The second alleged shooter is in a critical condition.
It was an organized Hanukkah event at the beach.
Awful, just awful :(
I hate Australian Nazis.
50 / 50 this guy was at some point a member of thr IDF. Good chance it’s a false flag.
One of the men was named Naveed Akram, so take of that what you will.
Am thinking this was a bit less Wehrmacht related and a bit more Gaza…
…but yeah… obligatory fuck NAZIs just so no one misunderstands my point.
This news comes less than 24 hours after Hamas leader was killed in Gaza, during cease-fire no less. These innocent people have nothing to do with that, and it’s possible it’s not related, but BOTH sides need to stop this madness or it will never end.
…BOTH sides need to stop this madness or it will never end…
Isaac and Ishmael. It’s been going on for thousands of years. Old, old family squabble, it is. :(
I must politely reject this assessment. There have been decades and centuries of peaceful coexistence. It isn’t as though this is a persistent condition.
Prior to 1948, there were a lot of Christians and Jews living in Palestine without major conflict.
The modern ethno-religious tensions are the product of modern political events, not some mystic curse.
This doesn’t get brought up enough. The UK and US rolling up with wealthy Zionists to bully people from their ancestral lands. To give those lands to the wealthy Zionists who has largely escaped personal suffering. As consolation for their suffering they’d largely escaped. (But also as a platform to influence and manipulate the middle east) Anyone should be infuriated. Not just Palestinians.
Yeah, a common them I come back to is cycles of mistreatment: people who were push from their homes pushed people from their homes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine
The ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict dates back to the rise of the Zionist movement, supported by the United Kingdom during World War I.
So it does go back a bit further, but the United Kingdom fueled the fire.
True. It definitely has a long history. My point though – as you said – is that it’s really a persistent myth that these people are just oil and water. Their conflict is far more material than that.
It certainly isn’t intractable.
No there hasn’t, wtf are you on about? First of all, there literally has never been a Palestinian state in history before the modern one which started around the same time as the modern Israeli state. So what you’re referring to doesn’t exist.
Second of all, the different religious groups have been killing each for literally thousands of years over this crappy piece of land. This is true now, during the British mandate, during the Ottoman era, during the Mamluk era, and so on. Even in the most peaceful of times, there was still rampant oppression, discrimination, riots, and atrocities. This idea that things were just peachy before is complete nonsense.
Whatever Palestine ever existed as a state of not is completely irrelevant and that talking point is used by Zionists. The fact is that Palestinians was living on there land and foreigners came and forced a state on them then ethnically cleanse them two and not they are ethnically cleansed a third time . You have right to hate religions but please do not excuse settler colonialism, creating famine and the murder of children because of it.
Let’s not also forget that the 2 world wars didn’t happen because of religion and the European colonial powers had the most bloody colonization history. You would not dare to infer that Europeans are natural savages that are always bloody like you are trying to portray all Muslims and jews
Whatever Palestine ever existed as a state of not is completely irrelevant. The fact is that Palestinians was living on there land and foreigners came and forced a state on them then ethnically cleanse them two and not they are ethnically cleansed a third time
It’s not though. The point that I was trying to make is that this region never had sovereignty until very recently with the two modern states. Prior to this, the region was always controlled by foreign empires like the British, Ottoman, Malmuk, Ayyubid, and so on. Every one of these empires came and forced a state on to the region.
But we have to contextualize what this means. Back during the days of the Ottoman Empire, there was an infamous system in place called sürgün that kept everybody the boot and the Turks were at the top. They did this by radically shifting demographics of all the regions they conquered. They would forcibly deport entire ethnic and religious groups that they viewed as threat to their rule to other regions of the empire that they felt were safer, and vice versa.
For example, the Ottoman empire famously did this with the Christians in Southeastern Europe. The Ottomans moved millions of Christians Europeans to Anatolia and the Levant, and relocated just as many muslims and Turks to southeastern Europe. This is why countries like Bulgaria, Albania, Bosnia, etc have such large muslim populations and why Turkey and the Levant region have so many people who are ethnically European. This of course includes the region of Israel/Palestine. A lot of prominent figures in the Palestinian movement were ethnically European. For example, Amin al-Husseini was ethnically Bosnian.
The Israel/Palestine region meant a lot to the empire as it was a strategic location, but also contained important islamic sites that the empire uses to derive its legitimacy as the muslim empire. To ensure this, they wanted to make sure that the region stayed firmly in islamic hands, and so they tried their best change the demographics. The Empire forcibly relocated muslims and Turks from all over empire to settle in the region, they forcibly relocated Jews to other parts of the empire like Cyprus and Anatolia, they placed restrictions to prevent Jews from migrating to key cities in the region like Jerusalem and Hebron, and they use dubious reasons to depopulate Jewish areas by forcing them to evacuate from a nearby battle for example, but then the empire would give the okay for muslims to return but not Jews. They did the same to Christians in the region, but to a lesser extent. What this means is that a lot of the inhabitants of the region were moved out and replaced by other people not from the regions via imperial policy
The point is that this region was always controlled and populated by foreigners. This idea that the region of Israel/Palestine was inhabited by Natives like North America was when the Europeans arrived is simply false. The region’s population was pretty cosmopolitan and dynamic, though not by choice. This doesn’t excuse the ethnic cleansing campaigns that happened afterwards, but I do think there’s value in maintaining a historically accurate understanding of the region rather than repeating misinformed online narratives.
You have right to hate religions but please do not excuse settler colonialism, creating famine and the murder of children because of it.
This is a very myopic and historically inaccurate view of history. While some elements of Israel’s establishment can be classified as settler colonialism, it’s not accurate to say that all of it is. For example, when Israel was established. The muslim world started committing pogroms in mass against their Jewish communities even though they had nothing to do with Israel. These people who been living in their communities for hundreds, and for some, thousands, of years were forced to abandon everything, including their citizenship, and flee to Israel because that’s the only place that took them in. The total number of people from the exodus total around 1 million people. These people and their descendants now make up a very large chunk of the Israeli population, if not an outright majority.
The term “colonialism” implies intent, but in reality these people were refugees who ended up in Israel due to circumstance. This is a stark difference from European Jews, who were also refugees, but they actually migrated to the region with the intent of settling and creating their own state.
Let’s not also forget that the 2 world wars didn’t happen because of religion and the European colonial powers had the most bloody colonization history.
This is true, but these are also different regions with different histories.
You would not dare to infer that Europeans are natural savages that are always bloody like you are trying to portray all Muslims and jews
Except I never made such claims, I merely pointed out the historically accurate fact that this region has been fought over constantly for thousands of years. A bunch of major religions claim this region to be the holy land, and so it has always been the center of different people fighting for control.
Chill, man. I’m not here to fight.
I’m also not going trying to white-wash anything. War and tribalism are indeed ancient, and historical echos can certainly be found. But my point is this: the regional conflict between Jews and Muslims is most certainly not a persistent, perpetual, irrational animosity that has stubbornly raged on for millennia. It is true that it is informed by a long cultural relationship. But the violence is modern. It’s caused by political forces, and it can be ended by changing those political forces.
Prior to the Zionist movement and the Arab nationalist movement of the twentieth century, Jews and Muslims (and many other groups) cohabitated Israel-Palestine (or Trans-Jordan or whatever you want to call it). They did in fact share the land peacefully in the nineteenth century.
https://www.972mag.com/before-zionism-the-shared-life-of-jews-and-palestinians/
the regional conflict between Jews and Muslims is most certainly not a persistent, perpetual, irrational animosity that has stubbornly raged on for millennia.
Using the reductio ad absurdum fallacy is not going to change the fact that what I said is true. Religion in the Middle East is NOT like what it is in the West. In the West religion is something that is private and chosen voluntarily. It is treated as another layer to someone’s identity. That’s not how it works in the Middle East, over there religion IS your identity. You religion defines you, your people, your culture, and your history. It’s something that you can’t escape, especially since secularism is not widely accepted.
Tribalism in the middle east is not ancient thing, it’s still alive and well. I’ve seen this first hand in my home country of Iraq. Things like collective punishments, discrimination on the basis of religion, and people in power prioritizing their own religious and ethnic groups over others or specifically targeting groups they don’t like are all very common.
The point of me saying all this is to say that religion in that part of the world has a different meaning. When people say different religious groups are fighting over there, they’re not fighting for some mythical holy war like you seem to think. They’re fighting for control, power, security, and resources like anywhere else in the world, it just that religion is primary driver to rally people. What this means is that if there’s a conflict, it’s usually between groups of differing religions because religion is what people there use to divide themselves. It’s similar to how Americans viewed race in the 1950s but on steroids.
In this case, Israel/Palestine is a region that’s claimed as the holy land by three major religions. All of which want complete control over it to give their religion legitimacy, which is a lot states in the region use to legitimize their rule. The competition for this regions goes way back and it hasn’t really stopped. Before the two modern states, the Ottoman empire controlled the region, but they had to constantly shift demographics via mass displacements, forced relocations, and migratory restrictions to make sure that the muslims and Turks were on top… and even they still had to deal with a lot of rebellions. Before that, the Malmuk Sultanate and the Ayyubid Caliphate faced a lot of resistance from Jews and Christians in the region and had to carry out a lot of cultural genocide campaigns to Arabize and muslimize them. Before that, the Kingdom of Jerusalem took over the region through the bloody crusades. You get the idea.
This idea that the different religious and ethnic groups in the region were living together in peace and harmony prior to the modern Israel/Palestine conflict is nonsense. It is quite literally propaganda. That’s not historically accurate, that’s not reality. This region was definitely not peaceful in the 19th century, in fact this was when this region was at its bloodiest because that’s when the century the Ottoman Empire started carrying out it’s infamous genocides before it collapsed during WWI. I’m literally from this region (Iraq), and I can tell you that the only people who believe this in this fiction are people who have never been to this part of the world.
We have always been at war with Eurasia.
You can deny history all you want, it’s not going to change it
what “side” were the people on the beach on?
Yeah let’s ignore all other times in history where there was inter religion solidarity. Like when the ottoman welcomed Jewish refugees kicked out from Spain and portugal or the yemeni jews welcomed in palestine in the late 1800s and both participated in each other festivities. Or when jews was allied with the early muslims in the 7th centuries or during the Farhud pogrom where both communities protected each others.
It’s been going on since ~1900. Before that they were friends, often brothers in arms.
My sympathy to families of all the innocent people who got murdered. Ending Israeli occupation is the only way to prevent those type of incident
Read the room. This ain’t it.
So you don’t want to root of rhe provlem to be fixed?
Only morons say things just to fit in with others.
Cringe
Found one.
Says the less than a day old outrage account lol
shut the fuck up with that bullshit.
Fuck you
When is the right time to acknowledge that injustice radicalises people? Once everyone is blind?
How long do we have to act as though Israel’s genocide is not directly causing a sharp increase in “antisemitism” globally?
You’ve been on Lemmy long enough that you should know that this is one of the most discussed topics here. Probably top 3.












