Some Aussie swimmers were in California for some reason and got their hands on some shotguns in a gun store, took a picture and posted it on Facebook.
Shitstorm ensues.
Swimmers Nick D’Arcy and Kenrick Monk have been ordered to remove Facebook photos of themselves posing with high powered guns…
“I doubt they have the moral sensitivity to be concerned about human suffering.”…
“We say again to our athletes, do not put anything up on social media that you would not share with your mother or your grandmother.”
Okay, that would be funny if it weren’t Australia. That just depresses me. I especially like the way the shotguns are always “High-Powered Guns” in the story.
As Tim Blair notes, far more children (It’s For The Children!!!! Won’t Someone Please Think Of The Children!?!?!?!?!?!!?!) drown than die from guns, even in America where we leave loaded guns in cribs, so… actually these swimmers are just trying to steer children toward a safer alternative.
At one time I actually thought Australia might be a good fallback country, no more. I’m down to about 10-15 states and no other countries where I could live. I need to win the lottery and buy an island and make it my own country, or maybe stage a coup in some African craphole.
I love the people pointing out that Australia has a freaking rifle team in the Olympics. Ummm, what do those whining about this think the shooting team is, you know shooting? Nerf guns?
SMOD, take us away!
Well, at least they had the good sense not to go to a 7-11 and pose holding Super Big Gulps.
The Horror!!!!!!!!!!
Don’t the shooting sports in the Olympics now use lasers? Or wasn’t there something about that possibly happening at one time?
In general there is spent a lot more time trying to ban guns than teaching swimming or encouraging swimming lessons.
Somehow ending up dead from a gunshot wound is far more tragic than ending up dead by drowning.
Not sure why letting everyone carry a gun and teaching everyone to swim never entered into the equation but… there you go. Go figure, huh? At what point did thoroughly training someone about anything make it less safe?
Beyond all that… what the hell does the media really mean when the say “high-powered gun”? Is it their contention that the intruder in my house going to say “Oh, hell, you just shot me and it was a high-powered gun, I guess I’m done for.”? Do they think he going to quibble about muzzle velocity or foot-lbs as the light fades from his eyes and his gun tumbles out of his lifeless fingers? The media generally doesn’t know a M1911 from a .30-06 and continually seems to think shotguns and rifles are the same thing.
Lastly, my grandmother was known to target shoot with us. Anything I put on social media with her in the picture probably would have her holding a weapon, too.
I have been seriously considering emigrating to Perth. The place is growing like a frontier and the people were exceptionally hospitable and seeking new neighbors. More jobs than bodies. However, the metrolopolitan euro wannabees in Melbourne and Sydney control the federal government and this sort of nonsense keeps me from making the leap.