If the NZ Mass Surveillance State are finished with spying on Māori, Greenpeace, Green Party, MANA Party, Journalists, Bloggers, Social Justice Activists, Muslims and Earthquake survivors could they maybe give these gun fanatics a squiz?

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Who NZ Police seem to think the threat is.

Ummmmm, if the NZ Mass Surveillance State are finished with spying on Māori, Greenpeace, Green Party, MANA Party, Journalists, Bloggers, Social Justice Activists, Muslims and Earthquake survivors could they maybe give these gun fanatics a squiz…

Riverbed ‘like a war zone’

Shooters fired semi-automatic rifles in a Canterbury riverbed during two minutes of silence to mark the Christchurch terror attacks. David Williams reports.

A North Canterbury riverbed has been turned into a “war zone” by shooters using high-powered, semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, a nearby resident says.

The shooters – a group of caucasian men, many of them from Christchurch, and mainly aged in their 20s and 30s – haven’t stopped their target practice on the Okuku River bed, near Rangiora, despite multiple complaints to police over a period of months. They even insensitively had a shoot on the afternoon of March 22 – at the same time as a national two minutes of silence observed a week after last month’s terrorist attack in Christchurch.

Newsroom spoke to two Okuku residents – who don’t want to be named for fear of retaliation – whose properties adjoin the river.

“Sometimes it’s like a war zone,” one says, adding: “Something needs to be done – someone will be killed.” The other, a resident of more than 10 years, says that after the Christchurch attack the incredibly loud sound of fast, repetitive gunfire – “that doong-doong-doong” – had sent their fearful daughter under her bed, to hide. “I certainly wouldn’t let the kids go down there.”

…I’m not an expert in national security or the hunting for alpha predator white supremacist gun nuts, buuuuuuuuuuuuut don’t white males aged between 20-40 with semi-automatic weapons who decide to shoot those guns during the 2minute National moment of  silence in the wake of a white supremacist terror attack which mass murders and maims 100 Muslims kinda fall into a category that should investigated?

I only ask because it seems that when Newsroom contacted the Police about this, they had no fucking idea it had happened or had been an ongoing problem…

Newsroom’s questions to police about the incidents are being treated as an Official Information Act request. That’s because, we’re told, key police contacts weren’t immediately aware of the complaints and a quick search of their systems by communications staff drew a blank.

…maybe the NZ Police might have an idea if the Special Investigation Group weren’t so busy wasting time on environmentalists, journalists and brown people.

I’m not asking for an expansion of the mass surveillance state, I’m just asking them to use their already enormous powers against actual threats, not imagined ones.

12 COMMENTS

  1. Yeah it sure seems like a bunch of gunslingers firing off masses of rounds in an uncontrolled environment open to the public,- bullets ricocheting off rocks and so on…which can travel for miles. I’d suggest they need a visit from Mr Plod to have a wee chat with them.

    Certainly seems like a pointed ‘ Up Yours’ situation in light of the two minute silence.

  2. “I’m not an expert in national security or the hunting for alpha predator white supremacist gun nuts, buuuuuuuuuuuuut don’t white males aged between 20-40 with semi-automatic weapons who decide to shoot those guns during the 2minute National moment of silence in the wake of a white supremacist terror attack which mass murders and maims 100 Muslims kinda fall into a category that should investigated?”

    Maybe, just maybe, you know, gun nuts have a fetish for their “right to bear arms” just as * SOME* on the Left have a fetish for free speech that has pre-occupied and taxed the minds of some on this blog??

    The response might be ” oh buts thats different!” But from the perspectve of the gun nut, no it isnt all that different

    Seen in that context the 15 March massacre was the price we pay for the right to bear arms

    Just as hate speech is the price we pay for the right to speak freely

    Or we could just think it over and come to tge conclusion that there is no such right to absolute freedom for anything

    Radical concept I know

    (PS, to the Admin, if youre going to delete my comments at least have the balls to do it openly. You know, free speech, courtesy, etc, etc)

  3. Could be some hoons.
    Could be some people legally sighting weapons in. May or may not be semi automatic?
    Wouldn’t know from that unresearched god awful excuse for reporting.

  4. In the region where I live, some hunters went on to a farm, rounded up the deer and shot a whole bunch of them. The armed offenders were called in but when they saw it was “just” hunters “poaching” they took off again and six months later the police still haven’t decided if they will prosecute the hunters.

    In any other case, i someone came on to your property with loaded weapons to essentially steal your possessions, they would be charged with aggravated robbery but when it is hunters poaching, the worse they could get is charged under the Wildlife Act.

  5. General state of uninformed gun paranoia being stoked.

    Poster “tussock” has summarised the stuff article elsewhere on the internet, I’ll paste it here for you:

    “You need to translate the stuff code

    “War zone” = outside suburbia
    “Official information act needed as Police searched their database for the issue and found nothing” = there was no issue, it is legal, if the cops recorded every whinge their database would break

    “High powered semi autos and shotguns” = someone heard a bang

    Note there were only two residents = (on stuff) the entire town.

    “A resident who has lived here for over 10 years” (and is complaining) = An English immigrant

    “We asked if police are re-opening historic inquiries into the illegal use of firearms” = we want to subtly imply what was done in the riverbed was illegal.

    The shooters – a group of caucasian men, many of them from Christchurch, and mainly aged in their 20s and 30s = Neo Nazis terrorists from Christchurch

    Someone will be killed = Mortality. Statistically speaking, someone will be killed, somewhere at some point. Stuff would like to remind you worry

    The Okuku shooters = They have a name now. Fear and dread. Al Quaeda, ISIS, Nazis and the Okuku shooters.

    It’s basically just that cowboy mentality = countryside = not suburbia = war zone

    People don’t care = the only non sensationalized sentence in the article

    It has intensified since the March 15 terrorist attacks = Roar sight in + people who read stuff going insane

    “An Okuku resident says they were thrown from their horse when the shooting started on the afternoon of March 22” = An Okuku resident can’t ride a horse while composing a complaint in their head

    “For them to shoot at that time [during the 2 min silence] … it was obvious – it was get stuffed, the whole lot of you” = ??????????????
    Personally this is the first I have heard of this 2 min silence???

    “The other nearby resident had gone outside for a moment of quiet reflection and heard the “defiant” gunfire, in the face of more restrictive gun ownership laws. “It could be a coincidence, but it didn’t sit so well with me to suddenly hear that.”” = ARMED GUNMEN ARE IN OPEN REBELLION!

    “Multiple complaints have been made to various authorities” = Not actually doing anything wrong, or anything that has not been done for >100 years so no one cares, but we want them to = two people who complain a lot

    Circumstances dictate whether police move people on or lay charges. = We could say “this is not illegal” in one sentence but where is the spin? There is no spin! = Gun owners bad

    “There’s a real cavalier attitude,” = I moved to New Zealand and I would like all the New Zealanders to leave

    “An Okuku resident says the Christchurch terror attack changed the way they viewed the regular riverbed shoot-’em-ups near their property” = Stuff generated a lot of drama and “a local resident” wants in on it

    A man they confronted six months ago was Australian. “I Googled him but it wasn’t the same guy,” they say, relieved. = someone with a gun is a Terrorist

    But they still wonder why the group of men are shooting high-powered rifles in an area well-used by the public. “What are they practising for?” = People sighting in are Terrorists

    Something needs to be done, they say – whether the group’s intentions are nefarious or not. = Subtly implying this a group of terrorists

    This is an area where families go and swim in river holes,” one Okuku resident says, before adding: “Well, we used to” = We used to in January, not in March = This is where families go to sight in in March

    Because of the motorbikes that are coming up the river, and the kids coming up on their ponies, and things like that, someone will be killed = Possible unrelated point about motorbikes and ponies killing people”

    • Don’t agree with everything you say however very clever and amusing response to the Okuku Shooters ?

    • Agree with KEEPCALMCARRYON. This story was/is full of holes and is just media hype. It may need looking into by the Police (not the “intelligence services), but if there has been no formal complaint it is just noise.

  6. Now whenever I see the word supremacist ….. I’d think of the word subhuman.

    No group of humans are supreme ….. and those who think they are above other humans ….. are actually ‘sub’, or ‘ less than’ human.

    But I do agree with the article …. there has been a lot of angry threatening behavior and language by weapons owners.

    The ‘fringe’ ones definitely need a hard look and some investigating of ….

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