TDB was on this when it happened, Newshub pick up this latest nasty Twitter schism today…
National leader Judith Collins has spoken up for a columnist who was stripped of her guns over a tweet police considered to be “threatening”.
Rachel Stewart, who has written for Stuff and NZ Herald, lashed out on Twitter in May amid debate over Speak Up For Women, a group opposed to gender self-identification, being blocked from hosting a speaking event in Christchurch.
The discourse online became heated, with transgender activists lashing out at Speak Up For Women supporters like Stewart, and vice versa.
Stewart, in response to Speak Up For Women supporters being labelled “grubs” on Twitter by an advocate who accused them of being anti-transgender, responded with a tweet that police considered to be threatening.
“Is it wrong that the country girl in me wants to invite my gun-toting sisters over, strip this wee f***er naked, let him loose in the back paddock, jump on the tray of the ute, and hunt him down with spotlights while whooping & hollering & drinking?”
Stewart posted screenshots showing that Twitter did not take action. Police did take action, however, after receiving a complaint. Stewart said two officers showed up at her home and removed her firearms, licence and ammunition.
In the notice of suspension Stewart posted online, police said they “consider threatening any form of violence against a person and exhibiting any form of hatred, as well as non-compliance with the Arms Act 1983, to be inconsistent with the criteria of a fit and proper person”.
…this police harassment of Rachel matters and watching so many woke left who I’ve previously respected gloating over the Police harassing Rachel has been as ugly as watching the same people so proud of themselves for attempting to pre-censor a movie none of them had seen.
This matters because there is a growing suspicion among many New Zealanders that the second the Woke have their new Hate Speech laws, they will unleash a wave of complaints from everyone whose opinion they don’t like.
Which is what is happening here with Rachel. To pretend that her tweet amounted to a serious and present threat to the Trans community that warranted the Police invading her home and seizing her guns is an outrageous abuse of power.
Labour says these types of micro aggression policing over the Trans issue won’t get used in the Hate Speech legislation, yet here is an example in real time of it happening!
Rachel poses no legitimate threat yet the Police determined she was an immediate threat.
This is an abusive over reach by the Stare against someone the Woke love to hate.
Rachel is an Award winning columnist, avid falconer, hunter, climate crisis activist, well known lesbian, staunchly feminist, firearms safety advocate, policy researcher, then treasurer, then president of the Whanganui chapter of Federated Farmers, she is not the one dimensional transphobic monster trying to commit a genocide against the trans community that the woke are disgracefully painting her out as!
Drop a drip of power onto your average Middle Class Identity Politics Spinoff/Stuff subscriber and they mutate into a thousand Tiny Hitler’s, a phalanx of little sisters whose eyes gleam with the same Dogma Cult of Mao’s Cultural Revolution.
What we are seeing here is woke fascism.
Under the Hate Speech powers being proposed, the first you will know there is a problem is a knock at the door by Police asking to interview you about what was in your heart when you wrote something on your Facebook page 2 years ago.
In a cultural landscape of woke micro aggression policing, people will stop fearing minorities are facing hate speech and they will start fearing being accused of hate speech.
Mark my words, if this Hate Speech madness passes it will unleash a tsunami of Police complaints as schisms turn on schisms and social media will erupt with roaming lynch mobs seeking justice for a past thousand sleights.
It looks like it has started with Rachel.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media
One of the reasons that the Police and SIS missed Tarrent is they are too busy spying and taking away guns from the law abiding! Police used to have a sense of humour or at least some sense of what is satire and what is not, but this is not the first I have heard of the police doing some elaborate raid on some law abiding person while every week there is some crime that the police seem to fail to attend because they don’t have the resources.
I’m in general quite pro police, because our family were the victim of a major crime where the police were fantastic. But what is going on with them in other areas (Nicky Hager, armed defenders etc) and they type of woke recruitment drives they are targeting concerns me, because they should be neutral and police recruitment should be about getting smart, practical police who will solve crimes for everyone not just selected demographics or spin on crimes.
saveNZ. The attack on free speech may be part of a global woke agenda. Prince Harry has offended Americans by criticising the First Amendment to the US Constitution, and describing it as ‘bonkers.’ The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech. The New Zealand Police may just be a political tool here.
The lunacy with all this is that Stewart always had her tongue firmly in cheek and there was never serious thought about this. The irony of 2021 is we have forgot about such human traits as satire, sarcasm, irony, hyperbole and importantly, humor.
I personally found the comment funny and have made similar comments throughout my life as throwaway humor as have many. This part of our humanity is now to be criminalized. This is why this isn’t a left or right issue its an issue that affects ALL of us.
The only shred of hope is that the Blairite is a poll driven creature. Therefore if you want this issue dead in the water those on the true left need to hold their nose for the next 2-3 polls and preference ACT or National (not Greens). If Labour start hitting 35% the panic will set in and they will ditch this quicker than you can say i’m a paper millionaire. You don’t have to vote National just preference in the next few polls – it’s quite simple.
we have forgot about such human traits as satire, sarcasm, irony, hyperbole and importantly, humor.
Yes, and as we do so, we will steadily become more robot-like. Is that what they want?
If the law goes through they would have to cull thousands of our library books, as not fitting the new “cultural” mould.
Oh, wait…
NZs Library culls 6000000 books
That’s ok Ardern’s not a reader so that will sit well with her.
Once the lunacy, hyperbole and arm twisting from your right wing mates over the hate speech discussion document is forgotten, it will be BAU. Natzi party and Act and Winstone?? HaHaHaHa………..
plus 10000 Frank!
In 2007 and 2008 Helen Clark’s government took the voters down a rabbit hole of small moves that in themselves were not major but in total gave rise to the nanny state label. She came to power when voters like me saw their policies as better for the country and businesses . It was an uncomfortable fit and it was easy to jump back to National with their bright new leader.
Will history repeat itself in 2023
Would you put money on that, Trev?
It would be a small amount . Personnally I could vote for Judith and would have voters for Simon but I am realistic enough to know that would be a bridge to far for many . Come the day an John Key will emerge from the rubble that is National at the moment
The internet gives so much but it takes just as much and one of those ways is through social media.
If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a noise?
This madness exists in that other fake dimension called social media. Turn it off and this fake, pretend, outrage and aggression stops.
‘ strip this wee f***er naked, let him loose in the back paddock, jump on the tray of the ute, and hunt him down with spotlights while whooping & hollering & drinking?”
Normal weekend at my place.
I do about the same. Get pissed at my local bar and laugh at all the smart unemployed professors spend the rent money on alcohol and lies.
change it from MAN to WOMAN and you have the beginning of pretty much any crime movie.
Martyn, you are way off-beam with this Quixotic thing. We don’t understand why you are digging the hole deeper.
Your friend, Rachel Stewart made a really stupid, unwise public comment. It involved a threat and firearms.
You can dismiss it as a “joke” but it appears others weren’t laughing. Firearms are not a laughing matter. Otherwise you’ve opened the door to all kinds of threats from deranged cranks who will try to use the “joke” thing as cover.
Will you still think it’s a laughing matter if you or a family member were threatened by someone who then tried to brush it off as a “joke”?
Have a look at some of the people responding to you previous blogpost “and then they came for Rachel Stewart”. Look at the unfamiliar user-names and what they’re saying. Several are gun fans. That’s who you’ve attracted.
I would also point out that far from Stewart being “harassed”, imagine for a moment if a brown man (a Maori activist, or a muslim man) had made such a tweet. How long before the Police beat down the door of a Maori or Muslim after making such a comment. I’d give it 24 hours, max.
So I don’t understand why you think Stewart is being “harassed”. Quite the opposite, it appears being a white person still conveys quite a bit of privilege in this country.
Rachel, you may have thought you were being hilarious. Unfortunately for you it fell flat. In case you don’t appreciate what your tweet looks like from another point of view, I’ve changed it a little. Let’s assume I wrote this targetted at you, quoting a previous tweet written by yourself:
“Is it wrong that the country boy in me wants to invite my gun-toting brothers over, strip this wee f***er naked, let her loose in the back paddock, jump on the tray of the ute, and hunt her down with spotlights while whooping & hollering & drinking?”
Do you understand now? Does it still seem “funny” to you?
Neither of us are laughing.
Sally & Dane
I agree that Rachel’s comment sounds a lot like a threat, albeit one couched in colourful hyperbole.
Even if she did not have the firepower to back it up, it would be concerning if it were directed at someone close to me. Around where I live, people do follow up after having made similar threats. They may or may not take out their anger on a human, – alternatively they’ll shoot up a bunch of farm animals in the night. But people have been maimed and injured as well.
So, how do you know whether a particular threat is “just joking”?
If you really considered Rachels’ comment to be an actual threat, I suspect you have never been seriously threaten before. It looks & sounds like a joke, in poor taste perhaps, but still a joke. Only a fool would make a real threat in writing on a public forum.
I suspect you have never been seriously threaten before.
You would be very wrong.
Did someone offer you a non vegan grilled cheese sandwich?
As stupid as this comment is, it won’t go to court. If Police investigated fair enough.
Yeah we can’t have gun fans now can we? Gosh they might be gun owners WITH a sense of humor and that would never do!. Much sucking of teeth and tut tutting!Where will it all end? not in front of the children it will all end in tears and then where would we be?
God almighty I feel like Sally and Dane are writers of 1950’s sitcoms come to purge us of our need to laugh!
FFS listen to yourselves.
The police overstepped the mark in this case.
But this is what Jacinda wants.
She’s Daddy’s girl after all.
Sally’s wife will be happy to know that the Government & Police are currently waging a war against law abiding firearms owners and they are winning. The gun buyback was an outstanding success & greatly reduced the number of law abiding firearms owners. The Police, with Government backing, are ratcheting down the pressure with increased controls, relicencing delays & petty incidents like this one, with the aim of reducing the number of law abiding firearms owners, either by them surrendering their licences or just not bothering renewing them. Will this make New Zealand safer? Of course it won’t, it will have exactly the opposite effect, but a few idiots will feel safer until they realise it was all a lie.
Guns in NZ have never really been a problem (except it the hands of Governments), just a tool. Gangs are not the problem, just a symptom. Inequality & the system that grinds people down into slavery & poverty is the problem and those running that system don’t want peasants with pitchforks and they certainly don’t want those peasants realising that the game is rigged against them.
You are so on to it Richard. As a person who has a gun sole for the purpose of pest control I am flabbergasted at the pig ignorance and utter stupidity of urbanites on the use of firearms in NZ. These people understand nothing and neither does Jacinda.
Do you watch TV? Cause CSI, any hollywood blockbuster like ‘Kiss the girls’ have that scene in it. And it is usually the women t hat runs away in various stages of undress from men chasing them. But then when it is women running away from men its entertainment, when its women making a bad joke against men using the same scenario its ‘terrorism’ ‘threatening’ and above all a threat against’ trans’ and she should have known her limits. Right?
The law.
One cannot threat violence against anyone AND be considered as fit and proper person to have a gun licence.
Thinking out loud on social media of a how some men make some women feel may have been meant as a joke (and the inference that the tool of a gun in the hands of a woman makes them dangerous just as a tool attached to a man makes them dangerous in women’s spaces is one deliberately chosen) but any threat of violence on social media will come to police attention.
For mine, I would have either warned her that any next time the licence goes, or given her a one year suspension before returning the guns. The case serves as a warning to others.
Defending free speech to the point of tolerating those with a gun making any threat to others, or expressing any hate for a group of people is crossing a line. If the police looked over the social media accounts of everyone given a gun licence a lot more New Zealanders would be alive today.
I am fully supportive of the new gun laws. The only people who need automatic weapons are soldiers, criminals or very inaccurate shots. This is not a situation that should cause anyone to feel genuinely threatened. It has just allowed someone to use it as an excuse to attack someone with views different from their own
Rachel made what I regard as a silly comment (its not even very funny) but for the police to take action on it is simply OTT. Lets get on with the important stuff.
1) Automatics were always banned
2) your new laws leave 2/3 of newly banned guns missing according to KPMG
3) your new laws -which go much much further in removing civil rights (silence, presumption of innocence etc) than banning semi autos (presumably what you were appreciating) enabled the current “bad joke that wasn’t” Rachel Stewart fiasco that you also think is OTT.
4) domestic non licensed gun crime is significantly worse since the new laws
So exactly what are you cheerleading here? Bad law because it feels so good because they said so?
That was the extent to which I was willing to increase police powers of search and seizure in order to outflank calls to give police increased powers to criminalise speech if I do recall our gun debates at that time, correctly.
I knew at the time that Jacinda would not purge the intelligence community of its attitude problems. She didn’t fire any of the oranga tamariki scoundrels so I concluded that a purge of the intelligence community was mathematically impossible.
Now I don’t support David Seymour’s ideas one bit but there are other notions that everyone must be afraid of him and that kiwis must be protected from his speech. That David Seymour is scary and that there needs to be safe zones erected all around him.
It’s tactically insane. You, like SPC is literally giving Seymour the best Chance of becoming Prime Minister and we can see now thanks to Racheal Stewert that Seymour can say we are the good guys and the left, what ever keftwingbpolicy means to people like you and SPC are actual, living breathing and in the present here and now, you are a Nazi.
It’s not the same ideolical underpinnings but they are similar. Step one burn books (movies) step two suppress voting, step three implement radical economic reform, step 3 purge the minorities and in the modern era no group is more pursiquited, there businesses shut down, livelihoods cancelled and destroyed, tiny and insignificant than the radical right.
I truly, truly, truly, dearly hope you notice it. Persecuting minorities was wrong then in the lead up to world war 2 and its wrong now.
We were supposed to remember. We was supposed to give the next generations after us a better deal not try and criminalise them and hunt them with our own skeletons in the closet.
Now concede.
Sorry Sam no idea what you are on about there mate.
Sorry about that, ignore him he’s stalking me here.
He’s trying to support Bomber against others on the left, by attacking them as authoritarians – I’ve been told to “wake up to myself” countless times (on Trotters Labour and the Left left I get called a shmuck as if he is some lippy German Jew waiting for a visit from the Jacinda’s constabulary).
the german jews did not need to be lippy to get a visit, they got a visit because a. they were jews, and b. the law stated clearly to arrest them on the count of their jewishness.
You would do well to remember that anything that happened was legal in Germany. The arrest of political dissidents i.e. socialists, communists, others, the arrest of religious dissidents, i.e. Jehovas Witnesses, nuns, preachers, others, the arrest of ‘desirables’ i.e. homosexuals, lesbians, trans, sick children, sick adults, those with learning issues, or other bodily handicaps, the arrest of parents denounced by their children for not being ‘aryan and hitler approving enough, the arrest of anyone who dared to help any of the aforementioned groups. Niemoellers Poem about how no one came to help him, just as he came to the help of no one before that is not a Peom of someone who was a dissident, it is the lament of someone who thought it could NEVER HAPPEN TO ME. And then it did. You might really want to think over your comment. Btw, the scene in Rachels tweet? Is literally a scene in many hollywood movies were a naked/barely dressed/blood covered/raped/tortured girls runs away from its attackers. She literally just replaced women with man. But then that is the issue, how dare this women ‘threaten’ a man when that is t he exclusive right of cis gendered male, and others who like to weaponise their penises against vagina having females.
No not really.
I was simply mocking the American Jewish language affectation by those who pose ACT as a soon to be new persecuted minority under hate speech law. Oy Vey.
Get over yourself. I just agree with what Bomber and Trotter say and am not afraid one bit defending there view in the comments. Now run away rat.
Are you honestly trying to deny the attempts you made to persuade me that banning “machine guns” is the correct thing to do?
Technically automatics have never been banned, just restricted so can be owned on a C cat. Under the new laws, they are still restricted but if you have magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds then your magazines are prohibited. You will then need to get a P endorsement & each magazine needs to individually registered. So if you have a MG42, you’re fine as it is belt fed. But if you have a MP40, then you’ll need to have a P endorsement & register your magazines.
Comments are closed.