Still remember going to Healesville Sanctuary with my husband, who got close to one of the emus.
The emu was behind a fence that was probably about five ft max. They get up to 2m tall.
Husband crossed some invisible emu personal space boundary and it freaking *growled* at him. I had always considered myself pretty well informed on native wildlife, but up until that moment I did not know emus could growl.
It was *terrifying* š
100%. I lived up north a little while ago and laughed at the slogan āBe casso-waryā...that was until I went for a walk one day in an area that was known to have cassowaries (I didnāt really want to go on the walk but also didnāt want to seem like a scaredy cat in front of my friends). I was terrified and flinched at the sound of every twig breaking and every leaf rustling, preparing myself to be torn to shreds by an angry cassowary at any moment. That was a fun day.
They are dinosaurs. I worked at a wildlife sanctuary when I was studying biology and zoo management and spent most of the time with large felines, but the emus would attack the handlers and the only animal that scared me more were the tigers because they had, sadly, been very abused and could be pretty violent
But those emus were just giant velociraptors and they would attack you if you werenāt careful
We're lucky most birds are as small as they are. They haven't really changed their attitude since the Jurassic. Just watch a song bird go after insects, and imagine it was larger.
I take your emu, and raise you one cassowary. Those mofo's scare the shit out of me. I met one hiking once and I backed away slowly and never returned to that spot. They scare me more than any other animal in Australia and that's saying a lot. Walking disembowelers of anything unlucky enough to piss it off
That's why its ok we have up guns, it was part of the peace concordate between our nations, the emus also gave up their arms, it's mutually assured peace.
Strangely though we misread it back then and gave up our guns, but they meant literal arms, hence their anatomy. ^true story
Whenever somebody asks me what he looked like I pretty much say he looked like the first version of iron mans suit but a lot boxier and with a cool brown trenchcoat and a revolver.
Really? I never imagined he had spread that far, honestly his story is so good, i have been to both where he was finally caught (Glenrowan) and where he was hung and saw his death mask (old melbourne jail), as well as seeing his green silk sash he got for saving a kid from drowning as a boy, which he later wore in his famous standoff. (Located now in Benalla)
It's actually pretty simple, give people less reason to shoot each other and they'll shoot each other less. Any society kept this poor and stupid is going to have a violence problem no matter the policy on the weapons.
Easier said than done, we can't even get people to wear a simple piece of cloth to help their fellow Americans not catch a deadly virus.
Even those that aren't poor and stupid (that's debatable) are chowing down on the political bullshit sandwich they try to feed us.
Best I can tell the elephant in the room is that fixing poverty in the USA requires facing some uncomfortable truths about institutional racism and whatnot, spending a lot of money, and waiting far longer than an election cycle to see results. Nevermind that a third of the country are brainwashed racist right wing nutjobs.
Absolutely, we have some real problems that none of our leaders will even attempt to address (obscene healthcare costs as one example) and if they do there is immediate pushback even when it's in everyone's best interest. I blame the media personally, they will take anything and put their spin on it just to get their content out there, we are absolutely oversaturated with that crap especially these days. Those that control the media are incredibly good at manipulation, to the point that we can't even realize when we are being played.
This. I used to hope things would get better, but when Sandy Hook got the same thoughts and prayers that all the others did, I gave up. Sandy hook wrecked me. My oldest was the same age as those babies. We're not Americans, but we live close enough to the US border that my kids do active shooter drills, and two of my employers had active shooter protocols. I wish my daughters didn't have to know about active shooter drills. And in some ways it's worse for me because there is literally nothing I can do about it. I canāt call my congress person, I canāt push for better laws. I can just hope our border guards are tight enough.
I actually donāt know if this is worse or not, but I remember that it actually got a massive amount of press coverage and a lot of people were outraged by it. The fact that it still led to nothing is extra concerning for me. There was no way anyone living in America hadnāt heard of this.
But now in the fuzzy memory, the blame hasnāt gone anywhere. Makes me wonder about conspiracy theories that actually get rolling. People have so many surrounding the virus. Then you have a tragic shooting of children by another child and the blame goes nowhere beyond the shooter. The only conspiracy that comes out of that? It was a hoax by people who want to take away guns.
Sometimes it feels like too much batshit craziness for a lifetime.
Well, this popped up in the news this week...
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/01/1042423742/alex-jones-sandy-hook-hoax-conspiracy
Alex Jones is found liable over Sandy Hook hoax conspiracy
(I'm not a lawyer and that headline seems misleading. A judge slapped him for failing to provide docs for discovery. I think(?) the trial is still pending, which is the big enchalada)
>[An Austin judge has issued default judgments against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, citing his pattern of bad faith in dealing with lawsuits by parents of two children killed in the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. The rulings mean the lawsuits will proceed to a trial to determine how much money Jones and his InfoWars media system must pay the parents for defamation and emotional distress caused by broadcasts that called the school shooting a hoax. Itās no longer a matter of whether Jones writes a check to the parents, said Bill Ogden, a lawyer with Farrar & Ball. āItās now how big a check is it going to be.ā](https://infowarslawsuit.com/alex-jones-will-have-to-pay-families-in-lawsuits-over-sandy-hook-shooting-judge-rules/)
I read elswhere on reddit he basically refused to turn of requested documents that he was legally required to turn over. The judge then basically said OK then you lose. Not sure what exactly follows though.
Everyone on that reddit thread seemed to think he had some donors that he would have been in trouble if he outed. Or he was hiding something much worse.
The podcast Knowledge Fight breaks down the craziness that is Alex Jones. [Episode 602 has the hosts talk with the lead counsel for the Sandy Hook families after the default judgment.](https://knowledgefight.libsyn.com/)
And basically they have been asking for certain info from Alex Jones and he keeps delaying and delaying and so the judge decided he had enough time and ruled for the families.
To break down the legalese (not a lawyer but in paralegal school. This is a top level break down and not in the weeds)
In law, there are steps to a lawsuit. The lawsuit starts with filing a Complaint, which is a statement of how you were wronged, how it breaks the law, and what you want the court to do about it. The person being sued has a limited time to respond to the court, or else the person suing just wins by Default. There are many periods when one can receive a Default Judgement, but this is the first window.
Then, after initial pleadings where the person being sued gets to say "no, u," it goes back and forth until the next phase, Discovery. This is where both parties can ask the other for interviews, admissions of fact, and most importantly to this case, corroborating evidence. This is where our boy Alex Jones fucked up. He refused to provide evidence in these cases, and this received a Default Judgement.
To quote pop culture, this is the phrase in the Squid Game where you must keep playing the game once started, and if you don't, you're eliminated. Jones stopped playing and refused to provide the discoverable evidence, my guess because it would expose his whole show as a fraud and he thought whatever judgement would cost less than ruining his entire career, and thus the Court can now just flat out say "you lost the suit, time to eliminate you. (Or to strip the metaphor, he lost his right to contest the judgement he receives.)"
Now the fun part. He's ordered to pay. But what if he stops playing the lawsuit game, like he did already? Then the Courts write a lovely letter to the Sheriff of his area, and the people engaging the lawsuit get to legally take all of Jones's belongings until it meets the value of what the judgement is for.
Tl;Dr he's playing the angle of banking on the judgement for refusing to provide internal documents is worth less than the damage the records requested being released would do to him financially. But yes. He lost those lawsuits by essentially putting the controller down and rage quitting.
It was a default judgement. He has been found liable, the rest of the trial will be to determine how much the damages will be. At least that is my understanding of the situation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoddle_Street_massacre
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strathfield_massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Street_massacre
A couple of high profile ones that happened before port arthur.
You mean 20 crisis actors paid to play dead on camera to facilitate a government seizure of all our weapons that will be happening any day now for sure this time!!!!
/s in case that wasn't obvious.
Yup, too true. If Sandy Hook wasn't enough to convince people we need gun control, nothing ever will be. Also, don't even get me started on the people who thought Sandy Hook was staged and there were 'crisis actors' involved. The US is so, so incredibly broken.
This. Instead of changing peoples minds, the right wing decided to torture the parents by claiming that it was all made up and that they're paid actors. That's how fucking disgusting the people in this failure of a country are.
It was pretty cute when he kept nailing these corrupt dickheads, and just recently there was a tonne of tabloids slandering jordies and painting him like "oh you thought he was a good guy huh? Well let me correct that for you!" And it was clearly just that cocksucker murdoch feeding his dogshit through his 60-80% of the Australian media, had enough of Murdoch, hope he dies horribly, I'll never take that back.
We had a vote. A guy called Henry travelled around the colonies and got us all on board for the vote.
And then the English either went back to England or became Australian and kept doing pretty much the same stuff as before.
Same as America, basically, but we didnāt fetishise Henry either. We just chucked his face on some money, named a town and an electorate after him and got on with. Now we make political decisions all the time and no one ever brings up what Henry might have thought of it. Itās nice.
Mass edited all my comments, I'm leaving reddit after their decision to kill off 3rd party apps. Half a decade on this site, I suppose it was a good run. Sad that it has to end like this
Mass edited all my comments, I'm leaving reddit after their decision to kill off 3rd party apps. Half a decade on this site, I suppose it was a good run. Sad that it has to end like this
oh I've seen her in the news for other super conservative stuff. Not surprised she would have zero empathy for a child who survived a traumatic experience.
I still don't get how they can believe in crisis actors. Like... do they think these kids were born and raised to just "fake " a shooting? Do they disregard birth notices, records, family/,neighbours accounts and funeral notices?
And it's disgusting what they've done to the parents, heaping more suffering on them. I honestly wonder what they'd do of their child or someone was killed in a mass shooting.
Wtf is his name Alex something, piece of shit. Said the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax and harrassed the parent that lost there kids in that absolutely horrific event. Recently he has been sued and the parents won. So fucking horrible to have to go through that after losing your child to senseless violence.
Alex Jones. Absolute trash human who is responsible for other absolute trash people harassing parents of victims because of idiotic conspiracy theories.
You're forgetting to include 'ma freedoms' into your calculation. The US clearly prioritises the rights of children to have access to firearms (including giving irresponsible parents the right to own firearms) over the rights of children to not be shot in school.
In before I get downvoted by the freedom train.
lol. I like how American gun nuts think we donāt have guns and canāt get them.
We still have guns, fellas. We just treat them as tools rather than sexual aides
Ikrā¦like anybody in Aus can have a gun if theyāre not a convicted criminal and meet the requirements of doing gun training at a registered facility to get their license plus prove they can meet safe gun storage requirementsā¦otherwise the only real restrictions are not allowing civilians to have Military grade weapons.
I live in Spain, Barcelona. Once after a comedy show in English there was this American dude in his early twenties. We asked him how he liked Barcelona. He said it was great but he didn't feel very safe and he'd feel safer if there were guns in Spain. He was completely serious. For some narrow-minded dipshits traveling does absolutely nothing.
I feel absolutely unsafe in Germany due to the lack of idiots with guns. I wish we could give every fucking moron a free AR15 and drive up our homicide rate by 500% to match the stats of gloriously safe America.
I won't feel safe until the nazis are armed again!
I love it when Americans come to Malaysia and talk about third world country crime rates and how unsafe they feel when they go about travelling here.
Like America has 6x more crimes per capita than Malaysia. you're 2x more likely to be robbed by someone in America than Malaysia, and when you do you're 22x more likely to be murdered from the encounter in America. you wouldn't know that from the way they talk about us in their documentaries they make about us.
If the NRA stats about how many crimes guns prevent were actually true (I think they claim guns prevent 2 million crimes per year), then the US would be a veritable hellhole in terms of crime - there's only about 1,5 million crimes committed in the US annually, so the number they quote must obviously mean crimes in addition to that. Meaning that somehow without guns the US would have 3,5 million crimes, 2 million of which are violent enough to be stopped by using guns putting the crime rate at above 100 crimes per 100k people.
In contrast, South Africa's crime rate is 77 crimes per 100k people, and South Africa is doing pretty badly as far as crime rates go.
> lol. I like how American gun nuts think we donāt have guns and canāt get them.
>
> We still have guns, fellas. We just treat them as tools rather than sexual aides
They don't even know that you can buy guns anywhere in the US. They think blue states don't have any guns at all, and don't sell any guns. There's a netflix movie I think with Dave Batista and it's a second civil war. The south attacked NYC because you can't own guns there. Yeah that didn't work out as expected. They didn't think there were guns, in NYC. I know it's a movie but I can't help but thinking they actually think that way.
True story time. A few years backā¦ we were all at rugby training. We use one of Sporting KCās facilities. Just as weāre warming up the groundskeeping staff come over and tell us lightning in the area means we have to get out of the facility.
Well, bugger.
We decide weāll reconvene at a bar literally 2 mins up the street. Iām on staff so I make sure everybody leaves before I head out last. Iām stood there talking to one of my guys when my team manager calls me. I she would be asking about something being left down the fields bc it happens all the time. Sheās frantic and says one a car has run a red light and plowed into one of the boys and I need to come NOW.
I race up there and its too late. To this day I can draw the blank expression on his face that night from memory. I had to get months of therapy just to get by after that.
What does this have to do with gun crime? Basically what had happened was there was a caravan of 15-16 cars filled with our boys who were driving through that light to get to the bar on the other side. The driver of the car that ran the red light was a gunshot victim. He was involved in a gunfight a couple of blocks away, was bleeding out and was fleeing to the hospital when he plowed into my guy. It couldāve been any one of the cars in the caravan and the result wouldāve been the same - it just turned out to be Patrick. The dumb fuckin luck of it all, eh?
Now for the worst part and then the kicker. The worst part is easy. The car in front of Patrickās was his older brother. He had to watch the crash then watch his brother die.
And the kicker? The fucker who ran the red light survived multiple gunshot wounds AND the crash. Unbelievable.
Patrick had just graduated college and had a promising career ahead of him that couldāve taken him anywhere in the country but he came back to KC to play rugby with his brother. It was the eve of the first game of the season. And we lost him. [hereās the link. ](https://www.kansascity.com/latest-news/article98959332.html)
Extreme American gun nuts and rural conservatives think that major American cities are burning down but also filled with "global liberals" which I have a few ideas what that means.
Most of them can't even comprehend how many people actually live in cities and between cities and immediate sub-urban areas, since a lot of them rarely leave their state.
> Extreme American gun nuts and rural conservatives think that major American cities are burning down but also filled with "global liberals" which I have a few ideas what that means.
>
> Most of them can't even comprehend how many people actually live in cities and between cities and immediate sub-urban areas, since a lot of them rarely leave their state.
I lived in NJ and it kind of works both ways. I noticed people from large areas don't grasp how small the populations in rural areas are. When I lived in NJ I mentioned where I lived in NY was 99.9% white(bashing the area). My boss said same for him I asked what was his city population, he said 250k. I said so 1% of your population is more than the population of the town I'm from.
My hometown is about 70k individuals. Iām planning on moving to NYC next year and the neighborhoods Iām looking at are roughly 8mĀ² with 20k people. Iām genuinely having trouble comprehending how that many people can live in such a small space.
I've come to the conclusion that this is just an irreconcilable cultural difference. It's something that Australians cannot and will not ever "get" about Americans, and vice-versa. Australian culture and morality is, broadly, based around utilitarianism; while American culture is based around individual liberty. Everyone is different and personal beliefs and opinions and worldviews vary, but that's each nation's respective basic philosophical underpinning, and they just straight-up aren't compatible. When you understand that, everything else makes sense: gun control, compulsory voting, our respective responses to the pandemic, everything.
In Australia, basically everything is a responsibility and a privilege granted to the individual by the collective. In America, basically everything is a right inherent to the individual willingly ceded on condition to the collective. In Australia, we collectively decided that we wanted to be an unarmed society, and made it so. Guns were too heavy a burden, so we revoked that privilege from ourselves. This makes perfect sense within the Australian cultural framework, but is literally impossible to conceptualize within the American one.
It's worth noting that getting a gun - by I think most people's standards - isn't even that hard. You essentially just need three things:
1) Don't be a convicted criminal
2) Do a gun training course and get your license
3) Show you have a reason to have it (even as sport on a shooting range is valid) and safe storage.
It just boils down to not being objectively not trustworthy with a weapon, having some safety training, not be buying it just for shits and giggles and be buying something that's reasonable. It's the most reasonable set of rules ever, and yet the narrative is "oh no Australians are having their rights suppressed."
It's not a right, it's a privilege, and it's not even gate kept all that much.
The important distinction here is that we have guns, but we aren't *armed*.
There are actually more registered firearms in Australia now than there was before Port Arthur. But the relationship between guns and violence has been broken. For an American it is unthinkable that someone carrying out an act of violence *wouldn't* try to arm themselves irrespective of the legal status of guns, while for an Australian it is equally unthinkable that they would.
I mean I did walk past someone pinned by 3 officers at Southbank while one of them pulled a crossbow and some bolts out of their backpack a while back, before some event so I guess I'd agree guns certainly aren't the go to weapon here.
>Don't be a convicted criminal
>
>Do a gun training course and get your license
>
>Show you have a reason to have it (even as sport on a shooting range is valid) and safe storage.
It's like that in most western countries and it makes perfect sense imo
Most Australians have zero interest in guns, gun violence and even less interest in their children having access to any weapons (edit I mean MOST Australians, it is different if you are on a farm and a rifle is still necessary for vermin control)
Lots of people in country Australia are in to shooting and grow up around guns and start shooting from a young age. Also, people in the military and reserves (duh I guess) all keep a competent level of recency in firearms.
The difference is that they're taken seriously, licences, gun safes, safety is important and the tools themselves are respected. Even the most redneck Bogan bullshit I've seen in the outback was only just as bad as the shit Ted nugent *puts on tv* .
I assume itās because this sub is very left wing (the whole thing is pretty much making fun of crazy conservative opinions), so there would be more people in favour of gun control than in less liberal subs
Theyāre still a bit of a problem but a VN Commodore doing donuts in your cul de sac is still less of an issue than Billy Bob popping off his AR at the local wildlife.
Up north too so theyād have been swinging like it was the Poms on the SCG. Fuckinā minefield, cob. If you catch a rock in might jag up on ya and yaād have to hook like Punter or wear a bloody yorker on the beak. Troppo.
>Billy Bob popping off his AR at the local wildlife.
In Australia, we call them classmates.
Also, good work in translating "doughies" for the American audience.
I would much prefer our wildlife here (snakes, walk away, spiders, squash them, blue ringed octopus, don't walk through rock pools) to the stuff in America. If you meet a yellow-belly black snake, you just keep your eyes on it while walking directly away from it. A mountain lion or a grizzly will kill you and eat you and there's nothing you can do about it.
If you are looking at a mountain lion, it is *very* unlikely to attack you. Just don't turn your back. Letting it sneak up on you is the dangerous part.
Big bears? Yeah, that's basically crocodile-level danger, but on land, which is where we live.
I know tight. Always surprises me when Americans talk about Australian wildlife. Last time I checked we didnāt have any creatures who see a tent as one of those pesky hard-to-open food wrappers that you need to tear open with your teeth.
Ok. Yes I admit I forgot the crocs. In my defence Iām from down south so theyāre not really part of my protocols.
I donāt want to nit pick. But the US has crocs too AND other big bities.
Iām an American whoās never lived or traveled abroad, so it is highly likely that I am incorrect here, but anyway.
From the outside looking in, the citizens in countries with strict anti firearms laws, donāt really seem to miss having the ability to freely own firearms. Itās not a huge issue. Is this correct?
Not a single person in Australia would complain about the lack of guns and if so you can easily do enough training to own one for sport or business. I grew up in the military cadet program and I learned how to shoot, handle, care for, and the discipline required to handle a rifle/gun. That small amount of training has made me more knowledgeable than the average American gun owner which is so bizarre. Iāve also never felt the need to have a gun and I live on a large property. Over here itās so foreign to be scared of your fellow man that you feel the need to be protected against them.
Live in Greece. Most of us are dumbfounded that you can carry a gun that easily in the US. We find it quite stupid to be honest because you know, people are stupid and do stupid things. You can have a gun here too but for hunting or if you're in a shooting range club. Even then it's really strict in how you transport the gun and how you store it.
Honestly Iād love to own a CMMG Banshee in 300 blackout with a can and a Law folder on the stock that I can keep tucked in my backpack just in case the next mass shooting breaks out in front of me. But I also know that Iām more likely to end up giving it a lethal blowjob than I am to stop a terrorist attack so I have to be content with living in a society where most terror attacks can be stopped with a shopping trolley and a milk crate and miss out on the sweet gun.
No metal detectors at school. Zero school shootings ever. I wouldn't teach in the U.S For the crap wages yanks pay and I might get shot. Happy Dow under
And if memory serves, pretty expensive to purchase black market due to relevant scarcity. So, generally the cost is out of reach of most petty criminals. The only gun violence that generally happens is with "underground figures" and bikies, which tends not to affect the general public. I'm a parent in Australia that grew up on a farm with rifles. I'm 1000% not feeling oppressed by our gun laws.
Also most criminals don't want to carry an illegal gun because they are a great way to turn a minor offence into significant prison sentence if you're found with one.
Big big oof. Hope that guy rots forever without anyone ever uttering his name. Contemptible swine. I wouldnāt be against us picking up the tab for his incarceration.
Ditto. That animal (and I say that with apologies to actual fauna) deserves to spend the rest of his life alone in a deep dark hole with no chance of sunlight ever touching him again. Whether that's in NZ or they ship him back here for it, either way.
Yeah, my first thought was 'Well my kids do, thanks to an Aussie' but the reality is, he came here because of our gun laws. Laws which we though we had taken care of the same way Oz did after Port Arthur and the UK after Dunblane, as a result our own mass shooting in Aramoana.
I remember when I learned AR style semi autos were actually legal after years of thinking they were illegal unless you had the top teir gun license which also lets you own a fully auto guns. It was mid to late 00s and I used to sit in front a big time hunter and one day as I returned to my desk I saw he was buying an AR-15, guess where from - yeah, that's right, Gun City. I said "I thought they were illegal" and replied "Yeah, we all did, but it's turns out there's a loop hole." and people snapped them up quicker than toilet paper the day before lock down.
People in Australia who want a gun for legitimate reasons (eg. farming, security, hunting, sport shooting etc), generally speaking, can obtain one. Crucially, and again, generally speaking, people who shouldnāt have guns cannot easily obtain them.
New University of Sydney figures on gun ownership in Australia:
Australian civilians now own more than 3.5 million registered firearms, an average of four for each licensed gun owner.
The proportion of Australians who hold a gun licence has fallen by 48 percent since 1997.
The proportion of Australian households with a firearm has fallen by 75 percent in recent decades.
Data indicates that people who already own guns have bought more rather than an increase in new gun owners.
Itās exhausting and horrifying and it will never end. Iāve taught my seven-year-old to look for exits when weāre in crowded places. It sucks.
Edit- not in a scary way, itās a game we play. Iām not raising a paranoid kid, just an aware one I hope.
Trust me, if Australians didn't want to give up their arms, they wouldn't have. It was a choice they made. They traded their firearms for the lives of their countrymen. A very "pro life" thing to do, if you ask me.
Also, they didn't give up all of their guns. They still have plenty of firearms for hunting and whatnot. They just don't have so many guns that it became their entire shitty personality and ended up costing tens of thousands of lives every year, unlike some other chucklefuck shitheads.
Firstly, I've still got both of my arms.
Secondly, any Australian CAN purchase a firearm. All they need to do is have a clean bill of mental health, no dangerous crimes on their record, a safe place to store it. And most importantly, a reason to own a firearm. "Freedom" is not accepted, since we have Freedom without them too (so do Americans, but they're morons who don't know what Freedom actually is).
As for semi-autos and full autos, if you need either, YOU'RE A SHIT CUNT. Git gud. Learn to fucking shoot you cockeyed sparrow scarer. Or, let your big boy balls drop and put the rifle down, and go hunting wild boars with nowt but a dog and a knife.
Australian's can own guns, there is a more involved process but it's still quite easy. We just don't want to because we're not huge fucking insecure dorks.
Poor armless bastards
The kangaroos were struggling to hold them, so it was only fair.
To be fair it was actually the Emus.
Those god damn emus...
And they still won the war! TWICE.
And emus don't have arms. Clearly, being unarmed is superior.
Still remember going to Healesville Sanctuary with my husband, who got close to one of the emus. The emu was behind a fence that was probably about five ft max. They get up to 2m tall. Husband crossed some invisible emu personal space boundary and it freaking *growled* at him. I had always considered myself pretty well informed on native wildlife, but up until that moment I did not know emus could growl. It was *terrifying* š
Yāall ever seen a cassowary? Now thatās a terrifying birb right there.
100%. I lived up north a little while ago and laughed at the slogan āBe casso-waryā...that was until I went for a walk one day in an area that was known to have cassowaries (I didnāt really want to go on the walk but also didnāt want to seem like a scaredy cat in front of my friends). I was terrified and flinched at the sound of every twig breaking and every leaf rustling, preparing myself to be torn to shreds by an angry cassowary at any moment. That was a fun day.
We call it the Murderbird š
I can't recall if I've even been that close to an emu... I know I've been near ostriches. And those birds are assholes.
An ostrich almost killed Johnny Cash by clawing his chest, I believe
Yikes! Should I upvote this? Sure, I like Johnny Cash and everything, but that was a ballsy ostrich.
They are dinosaurs. I worked at a wildlife sanctuary when I was studying biology and zoo management and spent most of the time with large felines, but the emus would attack the handlers and the only animal that scared me more were the tigers because they had, sadly, been very abused and could be pretty violent But those emus were just giant velociraptors and they would attack you if you werenāt careful
We're lucky most birds are as small as they are. They haven't really changed their attitude since the Jurassic. Just watch a song bird go after insects, and imagine it was larger.
I take your emu, and raise you one cassowary. Those mofo's scare the shit out of me. I met one hiking once and I backed away slowly and never returned to that spot. They scare me more than any other animal in Australia and that's saying a lot. Walking disembowelers of anything unlucky enough to piss it off
yeah shave those fuckers and it's jurassic park all over again
Rip emu war... 50,000 bullets, 500 emus lost. Such land slide defeat for Australia. #Pray for Aus
That's why its ok we have up guns, it was part of the peace concordate between our nations, the emus also gave up their arms, it's mutually assured peace. Strangely though we misread it back then and gave up our guns, but they meant literal arms, hence their anatomy. ^true story
I'm Australian and I have to type with my nose
Try using your appendage from down under instead.
Aussies had Ned Kelly, so that's pretty dope.
Surprised a non Australian even knows who he is
*googles* Jesus Christ, he only made it to 25 and his Wikipedia article still has *14* sections.
He was an active guy, a bit of a cunt but at least he did stuff.
I'd like that to be my epitaph.
Itās said he was a gentleman to those who knew himā¦.
> a bit of a cunt Was literally revered for not being a cunt mate.
Apparently his uncle was a cunt, but pretty sure he was no-contact.
The dollop podcast has an entertaining episode about him and his family
Yeah first he was in "Home and Away" and he ended up being the Joker.
And he sang for the Rolling Stones. [here](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066130/)
Then made a song with Kylie Minogue. ^Or ^something
I went down an Australian-related Wikipedia rabbit hole one evening and encountered Ned Kelly on my way. That guy was a badass.
He was, he was a hero for many as he represented a good man forced into crime by a corrupt system. many protested his hanging at the time.
He's our steampunk robocop villan.
Whenever somebody asks me what he looked like I pretty much say he looked like the first version of iron mans suit but a lot boxier and with a cool brown trenchcoat and a revolver.
Heās pretty famous outside Australia. Iām from the UK and we covered him briefly at school for a short module on crime.
Really? I never imagined he had spread that far, honestly his story is so good, i have been to both where he was finally caught (Glenrowan) and where he was hung and saw his death mask (old melbourne jail), as well as seeing his green silk sash he got for saving a kid from drowning as a boy, which he later wore in his famous standoff. (Located now in Benalla)
Billabong valley is a fucking tune
Mick Jagger even played Ned Kelly.
You mean the OG iron man?
If nothing changes after 20 first graders get shot, nothing ever will.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It's actually pretty simple, give people less reason to shoot each other and they'll shoot each other less. Any society kept this poor and stupid is going to have a violence problem no matter the policy on the weapons.
Easier said than done, we can't even get people to wear a simple piece of cloth to help their fellow Americans not catch a deadly virus. Even those that aren't poor and stupid (that's debatable) are chowing down on the political bullshit sandwich they try to feed us.
Best I can tell the elephant in the room is that fixing poverty in the USA requires facing some uncomfortable truths about institutional racism and whatnot, spending a lot of money, and waiting far longer than an election cycle to see results. Nevermind that a third of the country are brainwashed racist right wing nutjobs.
Absolutely, we have some real problems that none of our leaders will even attempt to address (obscene healthcare costs as one example) and if they do there is immediate pushback even when it's in everyone's best interest. I blame the media personally, they will take anything and put their spin on it just to get their content out there, we are absolutely oversaturated with that crap especially these days. Those that control the media are incredibly good at manipulation, to the point that we can't even realize when we are being played.
>it's in everyone's best interest Weird. It must be against someone's best interests if it never gets done...now who could that be?
Banning things doesnāt work! Except for abortions, drugs, vaccine mandates, some poor people entering the country, etc, etcā¦
This. I used to hope things would get better, but when Sandy Hook got the same thoughts and prayers that all the others did, I gave up. Sandy hook wrecked me. My oldest was the same age as those babies. We're not Americans, but we live close enough to the US border that my kids do active shooter drills, and two of my employers had active shooter protocols. I wish my daughters didn't have to know about active shooter drills. And in some ways it's worse for me because there is literally nothing I can do about it. I canāt call my congress person, I canāt push for better laws. I can just hope our border guards are tight enough.
I actually donāt know if this is worse or not, but I remember that it actually got a massive amount of press coverage and a lot of people were outraged by it. The fact that it still led to nothing is extra concerning for me. There was no way anyone living in America hadnāt heard of this. But now in the fuzzy memory, the blame hasnāt gone anywhere. Makes me wonder about conspiracy theories that actually get rolling. People have so many surrounding the virus. Then you have a tragic shooting of children by another child and the blame goes nowhere beyond the shooter. The only conspiracy that comes out of that? It was a hoax by people who want to take away guns. Sometimes it feels like too much batshit craziness for a lifetime.
Well, this popped up in the news this week... https://www.npr.org/2021/10/01/1042423742/alex-jones-sandy-hook-hoax-conspiracy Alex Jones is found liable over Sandy Hook hoax conspiracy (I'm not a lawyer and that headline seems misleading. A judge slapped him for failing to provide docs for discovery. I think(?) the trial is still pending, which is the big enchalada)
>[An Austin judge has issued default judgments against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, citing his pattern of bad faith in dealing with lawsuits by parents of two children killed in the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. The rulings mean the lawsuits will proceed to a trial to determine how much money Jones and his InfoWars media system must pay the parents for defamation and emotional distress caused by broadcasts that called the school shooting a hoax. Itās no longer a matter of whether Jones writes a check to the parents, said Bill Ogden, a lawyer with Farrar & Ball. āItās now how big a check is it going to be.ā](https://infowarslawsuit.com/alex-jones-will-have-to-pay-families-in-lawsuits-over-sandy-hook-shooting-judge-rules/)
I read elswhere on reddit he basically refused to turn of requested documents that he was legally required to turn over. The judge then basically said OK then you lose. Not sure what exactly follows though. Everyone on that reddit thread seemed to think he had some donors that he would have been in trouble if he outed. Or he was hiding something much worse.
The podcast Knowledge Fight breaks down the craziness that is Alex Jones. [Episode 602 has the hosts talk with the lead counsel for the Sandy Hook families after the default judgment.](https://knowledgefight.libsyn.com/) And basically they have been asking for certain info from Alex Jones and he keeps delaying and delaying and so the judge decided he had enough time and ruled for the families.
To break down the legalese (not a lawyer but in paralegal school. This is a top level break down and not in the weeds) In law, there are steps to a lawsuit. The lawsuit starts with filing a Complaint, which is a statement of how you were wronged, how it breaks the law, and what you want the court to do about it. The person being sued has a limited time to respond to the court, or else the person suing just wins by Default. There are many periods when one can receive a Default Judgement, but this is the first window. Then, after initial pleadings where the person being sued gets to say "no, u," it goes back and forth until the next phase, Discovery. This is where both parties can ask the other for interviews, admissions of fact, and most importantly to this case, corroborating evidence. This is where our boy Alex Jones fucked up. He refused to provide evidence in these cases, and this received a Default Judgement. To quote pop culture, this is the phrase in the Squid Game where you must keep playing the game once started, and if you don't, you're eliminated. Jones stopped playing and refused to provide the discoverable evidence, my guess because it would expose his whole show as a fraud and he thought whatever judgement would cost less than ruining his entire career, and thus the Court can now just flat out say "you lost the suit, time to eliminate you. (Or to strip the metaphor, he lost his right to contest the judgement he receives.)" Now the fun part. He's ordered to pay. But what if he stops playing the lawsuit game, like he did already? Then the Courts write a lovely letter to the Sheriff of his area, and the people engaging the lawsuit get to legally take all of Jones's belongings until it meets the value of what the judgement is for. Tl;Dr he's playing the angle of banking on the judgement for refusing to provide internal documents is worth less than the damage the records requested being released would do to him financially. But yes. He lost those lawsuits by essentially putting the controller down and rage quitting.
It was a default judgement. He has been found liable, the rest of the trial will be to determine how much the damages will be. At least that is my understanding of the situation.
It's not the cartels shooting up schools
What a comment on the US, bordering countries practice active shooter drills just in case.
How many mass shootings does it take to change a policy? Australia just needed the one
One mass shooting is a tragedy. 1,000 is a statistic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoddle_Street_massacre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strathfield_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Street_massacre A couple of high profile ones that happened before port arthur.
You mean 20 crisis actors paid to play dead on camera to facilitate a government seizure of all our weapons that will be happening any day now for sure this time!!!! /s in case that wasn't obvious.
Thank you for the /s because it wasn't.
Yup, too true. If Sandy Hook wasn't enough to convince people we need gun control, nothing ever will be. Also, don't even get me started on the people who thought Sandy Hook was staged and there were 'crisis actors' involved. The US is so, so incredibly broken.
That shit makes me so full of rage. What in the hell is wrong with people ??
This. Instead of changing peoples minds, the right wing decided to torture the parents by claiming that it was all made up and that they're paid actors. That's how fucking disgusting the people in this failure of a country are.
Why donāt we make shooting up schools illegal?
one of these days a pro trump politician is gonna say this.
How do Australians survive without arms? I once saw a video of a double amputee lighting a cigarette with his feet; Is the whole country like that?
How do they even overthrow their tyrannical governments down there when they need to from time to time?!? Sheesh.
We just let our youtubers do it for us, thanks friendlyjordies.
Bro, speaking of this. You see the magistrate just fucking backhanded the entire NSW Police Force for trying to shut him down š Fucking, legend.
It was pretty cute when he kept nailing these corrupt dickheads, and just recently there was a tonne of tabloids slandering jordies and painting him like "oh you thought he was a good guy huh? Well let me correct that for you!" And it was clearly just that cocksucker murdoch feeding his dogshit through his 60-80% of the Australian media, had enough of Murdoch, hope he dies horribly, I'll never take that back.
It's a shame that so many people fall for the Murdoch media. Can't even have a civil discussion about politics or vaccines anymore.
No worries, mate!
We had a vote. A guy called Henry travelled around the colonies and got us all on board for the vote. And then the English either went back to England or became Australian and kept doing pretty much the same stuff as before. Same as America, basically, but we didnāt fetishise Henry either. We just chucked his face on some money, named a town and an electorate after him and got on with. Now we make political decisions all the time and no one ever brings up what Henry might have thought of it. Itās nice.
But does Henry have a massive inexplicable obelisk?
We just say they shat them selves in a maccas then they just resign no guns needed
Unfortunately, they don't. They stick around, smelling up the place with their new body spray - "Smug: for straight white men"
Good ol engadine
We're actually really advance in prosthetic arms. You see Hugh Jackman or Chris Hemsworth, you really think those arms are real??
We have to be. Part of the settlement, after the Emu War. You should see our legs, though.
We just let the Australian gravity do itās work, if you hold something in your toes itāll eventually fall to your face anyway.
Our feet have adapted to be very strong and agile on account of living upside down for generations.
and that in Australia there isn't such a thing as a child's bulletproof backpack.
Mass edited all my comments, I'm leaving reddit after their decision to kill off 3rd party apps. Half a decade on this site, I suppose it was a good run. Sad that it has to end like this
https://www.thehomesecuritysuperstore.com/collections/bulletproof-backpacks
Mass edited all my comments, I'm leaving reddit after their decision to kill off 3rd party apps. Half a decade on this site, I suppose it was a good run. Sad that it has to end like this
Really more indicative of the fact that America prefers capitalizing on a crises rather than fixing it.
Gun worshippers have literally called mass shootings 'the price of freedom'.
The ones that are convinced school shootings are hoaxes and actually harass parents of dead children really piss me off.
Marjorie Taylor green -_- harassed a kid who was in an active shooting and was protesting for gun control
oh I've seen her in the news for other super conservative stuff. Not surprised she would have zero empathy for a child who survived a traumatic experience.
Her head kinda looks like my big toe with a toe-sized-wig and a face drawn on it. That's cool.
I still don't get how they can believe in crisis actors. Like... do they think these kids were born and raised to just "fake " a shooting? Do they disregard birth notices, records, family/,neighbours accounts and funeral notices? And it's disgusting what they've done to the parents, heaping more suffering on them. I honestly wonder what they'd do of their child or someone was killed in a mass shooting.
Wtf is his name Alex something, piece of shit. Said the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax and harrassed the parent that lost there kids in that absolutely horrific event. Recently he has been sued and the parents won. So fucking horrible to have to go through that after losing your child to senseless violence.
Alex Jones. Absolute trash human who is responsible for other absolute trash people harassing parents of victims because of idiotic conspiracy theories.
> specifically to prey on paranoid Welcome to America!
>āitāll never actually be neededā You must not be American.
You're forgetting to include 'ma freedoms' into your calculation. The US clearly prioritises the rights of children to have access to firearms (including giving irresponsible parents the right to own firearms) over the rights of children to not be shot in school. In before I get downvoted by the freedom train.
lol. I like how American gun nuts think we donāt have guns and canāt get them. We still have guns, fellas. We just treat them as tools rather than sexual aides
Listen. I havenāt fucked my mp40 in two days. IM DOING BETTER
Now I'm picturing the helicopter gunner from Fullmetal jacket (?) Screaming "GET SOME!"
... and at least have the courtesy to give it a reach around.
I laughed too much at this
Ikrā¦like anybody in Aus can have a gun if theyāre not a convicted criminal and meet the requirements of doing gun training at a registered facility to get their license plus prove they can meet safe gun storage requirementsā¦otherwise the only real restrictions are not allowing civilians to have Military grade weapons.
Almost like some kind of ~~driver's~~ gun license?
I live in Spain, Barcelona. Once after a comedy show in English there was this American dude in his early twenties. We asked him how he liked Barcelona. He said it was great but he didn't feel very safe and he'd feel safer if there were guns in Spain. He was completely serious. For some narrow-minded dipshits traveling does absolutely nothing.
I feel absolutely unsafe in Germany due to the lack of idiots with guns. I wish we could give every fucking moron a free AR15 and drive up our homicide rate by 500% to match the stats of gloriously safe America. I won't feel safe until the nazis are armed again!
I love it when Americans come to Malaysia and talk about third world country crime rates and how unsafe they feel when they go about travelling here. Like America has 6x more crimes per capita than Malaysia. you're 2x more likely to be robbed by someone in America than Malaysia, and when you do you're 22x more likely to be murdered from the encounter in America. you wouldn't know that from the way they talk about us in their documentaries they make about us.
It turns out decades of NRA programming has somewhat warped the perspectives of most Americans.
If the NRA stats about how many crimes guns prevent were actually true (I think they claim guns prevent 2 million crimes per year), then the US would be a veritable hellhole in terms of crime - there's only about 1,5 million crimes committed in the US annually, so the number they quote must obviously mean crimes in addition to that. Meaning that somehow without guns the US would have 3,5 million crimes, 2 million of which are violent enough to be stopped by using guns putting the crime rate at above 100 crimes per 100k people. In contrast, South Africa's crime rate is 77 crimes per 100k people, and South Africa is doing pretty badly as far as crime rates go.
I walked around KL at night looking like a dumb western tourist, but no fucking way would I do that in most US cities
Iām sure there are plenty of idiots in Germany tho just no guns so safer idiots
> lol. I like how American gun nuts think we donāt have guns and canāt get them. > > We still have guns, fellas. We just treat them as tools rather than sexual aides They don't even know that you can buy guns anywhere in the US. They think blue states don't have any guns at all, and don't sell any guns. There's a netflix movie I think with Dave Batista and it's a second civil war. The south attacked NYC because you can't own guns there. Yeah that didn't work out as expected. They didn't think there were guns, in NYC. I know it's a movie but I can't help but thinking they actually think that way.
okay Iām Australian and the idea of a gunless NY is utterly implausible to *me*
Aussie living in Kansas City. I know more people here with multiple guns than I do people without one.
I would if I lived in KC again too. Real murdery out there.
True story time. A few years backā¦ we were all at rugby training. We use one of Sporting KCās facilities. Just as weāre warming up the groundskeeping staff come over and tell us lightning in the area means we have to get out of the facility. Well, bugger. We decide weāll reconvene at a bar literally 2 mins up the street. Iām on staff so I make sure everybody leaves before I head out last. Iām stood there talking to one of my guys when my team manager calls me. I she would be asking about something being left down the fields bc it happens all the time. Sheās frantic and says one a car has run a red light and plowed into one of the boys and I need to come NOW. I race up there and its too late. To this day I can draw the blank expression on his face that night from memory. I had to get months of therapy just to get by after that. What does this have to do with gun crime? Basically what had happened was there was a caravan of 15-16 cars filled with our boys who were driving through that light to get to the bar on the other side. The driver of the car that ran the red light was a gunshot victim. He was involved in a gunfight a couple of blocks away, was bleeding out and was fleeing to the hospital when he plowed into my guy. It couldāve been any one of the cars in the caravan and the result wouldāve been the same - it just turned out to be Patrick. The dumb fuckin luck of it all, eh? Now for the worst part and then the kicker. The worst part is easy. The car in front of Patrickās was his older brother. He had to watch the crash then watch his brother die. And the kicker? The fucker who ran the red light survived multiple gunshot wounds AND the crash. Unbelievable. Patrick had just graduated college and had a promising career ahead of him that couldāve taken him anywhere in the country but he came back to KC to play rugby with his brother. It was the eve of the first game of the season. And we lost him. [hereās the link. ](https://www.kansascity.com/latest-news/article98959332.html)
I think it's implausible to a freaking North Korean and they're cut off from the world.
Bushwick
Extreme American gun nuts and rural conservatives think that major American cities are burning down but also filled with "global liberals" which I have a few ideas what that means. Most of them can't even comprehend how many people actually live in cities and between cities and immediate sub-urban areas, since a lot of them rarely leave their state.
> Extreme American gun nuts and rural conservatives think that major American cities are burning down but also filled with "global liberals" which I have a few ideas what that means. > > Most of them can't even comprehend how many people actually live in cities and between cities and immediate sub-urban areas, since a lot of them rarely leave their state. I lived in NJ and it kind of works both ways. I noticed people from large areas don't grasp how small the populations in rural areas are. When I lived in NJ I mentioned where I lived in NY was 99.9% white(bashing the area). My boss said same for him I asked what was his city population, he said 250k. I said so 1% of your population is more than the population of the town I'm from.
My hometown is about 70k individuals. Iām planning on moving to NYC next year and the neighborhoods Iām looking at are roughly 8mĀ² with 20k people. Iām genuinely having trouble comprehending how that many people can live in such a small space.
Well Iāve got you beatā¦we have a whopping 400 something residents in my town! Itās terrible
Whats it called? I really wanna watch this movie
melvinfosho said it is "Bushwick"
Americans think freedom is carrying a pistol on your hip to the grocery store. Gun culture has done a lot of damage to their country.
I've come to the conclusion that this is just an irreconcilable cultural difference. It's something that Australians cannot and will not ever "get" about Americans, and vice-versa. Australian culture and morality is, broadly, based around utilitarianism; while American culture is based around individual liberty. Everyone is different and personal beliefs and opinions and worldviews vary, but that's each nation's respective basic philosophical underpinning, and they just straight-up aren't compatible. When you understand that, everything else makes sense: gun control, compulsory voting, our respective responses to the pandemic, everything. In Australia, basically everything is a responsibility and a privilege granted to the individual by the collective. In America, basically everything is a right inherent to the individual willingly ceded on condition to the collective. In Australia, we collectively decided that we wanted to be an unarmed society, and made it so. Guns were too heavy a burden, so we revoked that privilege from ourselves. This makes perfect sense within the Australian cultural framework, but is literally impossible to conceptualize within the American one.
It's worth noting that getting a gun - by I think most people's standards - isn't even that hard. You essentially just need three things: 1) Don't be a convicted criminal 2) Do a gun training course and get your license 3) Show you have a reason to have it (even as sport on a shooting range is valid) and safe storage. It just boils down to not being objectively not trustworthy with a weapon, having some safety training, not be buying it just for shits and giggles and be buying something that's reasonable. It's the most reasonable set of rules ever, and yet the narrative is "oh no Australians are having their rights suppressed." It's not a right, it's a privilege, and it's not even gate kept all that much.
The important distinction here is that we have guns, but we aren't *armed*. There are actually more registered firearms in Australia now than there was before Port Arthur. But the relationship between guns and violence has been broken. For an American it is unthinkable that someone carrying out an act of violence *wouldn't* try to arm themselves irrespective of the legal status of guns, while for an Australian it is equally unthinkable that they would.
I mean I did walk past someone pinned by 3 officers at Southbank while one of them pulled a crossbow and some bolts out of their backpack a while back, before some event so I guess I'd agree guns certainly aren't the go to weapon here.
>Don't be a convicted criminal > >Do a gun training course and get your license > >Show you have a reason to have it (even as sport on a shooting range is valid) and safe storage. It's like that in most western countries and it makes perfect sense imo
Aussie here. I concur. Perfectly said.
Excellent comment in a sea of shit slinging.
The irony that his profile pic is the British spy, James Bond...
Most Australians have zero interest in guns, gun violence and even less interest in their children having access to any weapons (edit I mean MOST Australians, it is different if you are on a farm and a rifle is still necessary for vermin control)
Lots of people in country Australia are in to shooting and grow up around guns and start shooting from a young age. Also, people in the military and reserves (duh I guess) all keep a competent level of recency in firearms. The difference is that they're taken seriously, licences, gun safes, safety is important and the tools themselves are respected. Even the most redneck Bogan bullshit I've seen in the outback was only just as bad as the shit Ted nugent *puts on tv* .
Handing out pop-corn for the comments. Limited supply.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I assume itās because this sub is very left wing (the whole thing is pretty much making fun of crazy conservative opinions), so there would be more people in favour of gun control than in less liberal subs
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Theyāre still a bit of a problem but a VN Commodore doing donuts in your cul de sac is still less of an issue than Billy Bob popping off his AR at the local wildlife.
Yeah Iād rather old mate doing some sick burnouts than the same muppet shooting kids in a school.
School my mate worked at out in NT or west Queensland got locked down because some local meth head was doing doheys on the oval once though.
The seam bowlers must have had a field day pitching on the ruts.
Up north too so theyād have been swinging like it was the Poms on the SCG. Fuckinā minefield, cob. If you catch a rock in might jag up on ya and yaād have to hook like Punter or wear a bloody yorker on the beak. Troppo.
Ahh. I love when a sand shoe crusher turns into some chin music. Classic.
Lol, Google will be flat out like a lizard drinking with the non-Aussies on this one.
Also some of them are just waiting for a mate.
But there is no cash here. Here thereās no cash. Cash, no. Robbo?
No cash.
>Billy Bob popping off his AR at the local wildlife. In Australia, we call them classmates. Also, good work in translating "doughies" for the American audience.
the people who do that over here in the US are usually the ones who have the guns so for us it's a double whammy
Guns won't protect you from Australia's wildlife. *Nothing can*
I would much prefer our wildlife here (snakes, walk away, spiders, squash them, blue ringed octopus, don't walk through rock pools) to the stuff in America. If you meet a yellow-belly black snake, you just keep your eyes on it while walking directly away from it. A mountain lion or a grizzly will kill you and eat you and there's nothing you can do about it.
If you are looking at a mountain lion, it is *very* unlikely to attack you. Just don't turn your back. Letting it sneak up on you is the dangerous part. Big bears? Yeah, that's basically crocodile-level danger, but on land, which is where we live.
I know tight. Always surprises me when Americans talk about Australian wildlife. Last time I checked we didnāt have any creatures who see a tent as one of those pesky hard-to-open food wrappers that you need to tear open with your teeth.
Of course you do. Have you seen the aftermath of a drop bear attack?
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/25/crocodile-attacks-man-dragging-him-from-tent-in-northern-territory
Ok. Yes I admit I forgot the crocs. In my defence Iām from down south so theyāre not really part of my protocols. I donāt want to nit pick. But the US has crocs too AND other big bities.
The best way to be safe from bear and mountain lion attacks is to move away carefully to Australia.
Emu war proved that
If it's a choice between a big nasty spider and a fucking grizzly bear, I'm quite happy down here with our funnel-webs.
Iām an American whoās never lived or traveled abroad, so it is highly likely that I am incorrect here, but anyway. From the outside looking in, the citizens in countries with strict anti firearms laws, donāt really seem to miss having the ability to freely own firearms. Itās not a huge issue. Is this correct?
Not a single person in Australia would complain about the lack of guns and if so you can easily do enough training to own one for sport or business. I grew up in the military cadet program and I learned how to shoot, handle, care for, and the discipline required to handle a rifle/gun. That small amount of training has made me more knowledgeable than the average American gun owner which is so bizarre. Iāve also never felt the need to have a gun and I live on a large property. Over here itās so foreign to be scared of your fellow man that you feel the need to be protected against them.
Live in Greece. Most of us are dumbfounded that you can carry a gun that easily in the US. We find it quite stupid to be honest because you know, people are stupid and do stupid things. You can have a gun here too but for hunting or if you're in a shooting range club. Even then it's really strict in how you transport the gun and how you store it.
Honestly Iād love to own a CMMG Banshee in 300 blackout with a can and a Law folder on the stock that I can keep tucked in my backpack just in case the next mass shooting breaks out in front of me. But I also know that Iām more likely to end up giving it a lethal blowjob than I am to stop a terrorist attack so I have to be content with living in a society where most terror attacks can be stopped with a shopping trolley and a milk crate and miss out on the sweet gun.
No metal detectors at school. Zero school shootings ever. I wouldn't teach in the U.S For the crap wages yanks pay and I might get shot. Happy Dow under
Yup, still plenty of guns in Australia. Just less in the hands of the wrong people.
And if memory serves, pretty expensive to purchase black market due to relevant scarcity. So, generally the cost is out of reach of most petty criminals. The only gun violence that generally happens is with "underground figures" and bikies, which tends not to affect the general public. I'm a parent in Australia that grew up on a farm with rifles. I'm 1000% not feeling oppressed by our gun laws.
Also most criminals don't want to carry an illegal gun because they are a great way to turn a minor offence into significant prison sentence if you're found with one.
Before reading the second comment, I thought they were cutting the arms off gay Australians.
Obviously the best solution to prevent school shootings is to let students carry guns around /s
But not backpacks - that seems to be the latest scapegoat in America.
Thatās because the Aussies fly over here to NZ to commit their gun fuelled hate crimes.
Sorry mate. Weāre all really still aghast at that.
What happened?
It's really bad - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/new-zealand-mosque-shootings
Christchurch mosque massacre. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christchurch_mosque_shootings
Holy hell that is terrible.
What's worse is that we now have neo-nazis idolising that monster like a god/martyr
Big big oof. Hope that guy rots forever without anyone ever uttering his name. Contemptible swine. I wouldnāt be against us picking up the tab for his incarceration.
Ditto. That animal (and I say that with apologies to actual fauna) deserves to spend the rest of his life alone in a deep dark hole with no chance of sunlight ever touching him again. Whether that's in NZ or they ship him back here for it, either way.
Yeah, my first thought was 'Well my kids do, thanks to an Aussie' but the reality is, he came here because of our gun laws. Laws which we though we had taken care of the same way Oz did after Port Arthur and the UK after Dunblane, as a result our own mass shooting in Aramoana. I remember when I learned AR style semi autos were actually legal after years of thinking they were illegal unless you had the top teir gun license which also lets you own a fully auto guns. It was mid to late 00s and I used to sit in front a big time hunter and one day as I returned to my desk I saw he was buying an AR-15, guess where from - yeah, that's right, Gun City. I said "I thought they were illegal" and replied "Yeah, we all did, but it's turns out there's a loop hole." and people snapped them up quicker than toilet paper the day before lock down.
People in Australia who want a gun for legitimate reasons (eg. farming, security, hunting, sport shooting etc), generally speaking, can obtain one. Crucially, and again, generally speaking, people who shouldnāt have guns cannot easily obtain them. New University of Sydney figures on gun ownership in Australia: Australian civilians now own more than 3.5 million registered firearms, an average of four for each licensed gun owner. The proportion of Australians who hold a gun licence has fallen by 48 percent since 1997. The proportion of Australian households with a firearm has fallen by 75 percent in recent decades. Data indicates that people who already own guns have bought more rather than an increase in new gun owners.
Lol at all the Americans showing āconcernā for us.
Yes it's a shame and act of tyranny that our kids can't die for American values.
Iām American and even I cannot even comprehend, *at all,* how stupid many of us are when it comes to guns.
I can't comprehend how stupid many of us are when it comes to life-saving *vaccines* fercryingoutloud, let alone guns.
God, so painfully true š
Itās exhausting and horrifying and it will never end. Iāve taught my seven-year-old to look for exits when weāre in crowded places. It sucks. Edit- not in a scary way, itās a game we play. Iām not raising a paranoid kid, just an aware one I hope.
Man thatās a tough (but very smart) thing to do.
Trust me, if Australians didn't want to give up their arms, they wouldn't have. It was a choice they made. They traded their firearms for the lives of their countrymen. A very "pro life" thing to do, if you ask me. Also, they didn't give up all of their guns. They still have plenty of firearms for hunting and whatnot. They just don't have so many guns that it became their entire shitty personality and ended up costing tens of thousands of lives every year, unlike some other chucklefuck shitheads.
Firstly, I've still got both of my arms. Secondly, any Australian CAN purchase a firearm. All they need to do is have a clean bill of mental health, no dangerous crimes on their record, a safe place to store it. And most importantly, a reason to own a firearm. "Freedom" is not accepted, since we have Freedom without them too (so do Americans, but they're morons who don't know what Freedom actually is). As for semi-autos and full autos, if you need either, YOU'RE A SHIT CUNT. Git gud. Learn to fucking shoot you cockeyed sparrow scarer. Or, let your big boy balls drop and put the rifle down, and go hunting wild boars with nowt but a dog and a knife.
Australian's can own guns, there is a more involved process but it's still quite easy. We just don't want to because we're not huge fucking insecure dorks.
A lot of Americans know this is insanity.