Christchurch Mosque Shooting

Written By: - Date published: 2:39 pm, March 15th, 2019 - 362 comments
Categories: crime - Tags: , ,

There are multiple reports of a shooting at the Dean’s Avenue mosque, near Hagley Park in Christchurch. It’s said that there are bodies at the front entrance.

The Bangladesh Cricket team appear to have been at the mosque, which is near the Hagley Oval, though there is no suggestion any of them have been hurt.

Armed Police are raiding a house in Linwood village, around 4kms to the east of the mosque, though it’s not known if the two incidents are linked.

Several local schools are in lockdown and school children attending the the climate change strike rally in Cathedral Square have been asked to evacuate the area.

No word on the whereabouts of the shooter.

UPDATE: It gets worse; a body has been seen lying near Al Noor Mosque (Deans Ave) in central Christchurch and a second gunman has been seen near a mosque in Linwood.

A Christchurch Star reporter saw a dead body lying close by at Palazzo Lane near the mosque.

The body has been covered with clothing.

UPDATE: Buildings all over Christchurch are in lockdown, including all council facilities such as the library and art gallery, and all schools.

UPDATE: A Christchurch man (who we aren’t naming at this point) has posted a series of manifestos, saying he carried out the attack for the following reasons:

Why did you carry out the attack?

To most of all show the invaders that our lands will never be their lands, our homelands are our own and that, as long as a white man still lives, they will NEVER conquer our lands and they will never replace our people.

To take revenge on the invaders for the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by foreign invaders in European lands throughout history.

To take revenge for the enslavement of millions of Europeans taken from their lands by the Islamic slavers.

To take revenge for the thousands of European lives lost to terror attacks throughout European lands.

UPDATE: And, as is the modern way, the coward live streamed the shooting.

UPDATE: The shooter has been caught near Papanui High School. Christchurch remains on lockdown until it is clear he acted alone. Police confirm multiple fatalities at the Deans Ave mosque.

Last UPDATE for the night: 49 dead, 48 injured, 4 fascists in custody. Today has been horrible and tomorrow is going to be a very hard day. Kia kaha, aroha and lets stick together. A people united will never be defeated.

Live updates from Radio NZ here.

362 comments on “Christchurch Mosque Shooting ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. lprent 1
    15 March 2019 at 12:00 pm

    Please remember that we tend to be quite severe on moderating this type of live event.

    If you want to keep commenting, moderate your comments and reduce the speculation and point-scoring until the situation becomes less confused.

  2. marty mars 2
    15 March 2019 at 2:45 pm

    Shocked. My heartfelt sorrow goes to all the victims.

    • marty mars 2.1
      15 March 2019 at 2:53 pm

      Jesse saying on rnz that witness saying 30 people injured or ?

      • Katipo 2.1.1
        15 March 2019 at 4:23 pm

        Exactly!! What a sad business thoughts to all those affected. They should be our primary focus then lessons can be learned after the dust has settled.
        Most of the Social media that occurs simultaneously as these events unfold only seems to add more heat than light to the situation.

  3. mosa 3
    15 March 2019 at 2:46 pm

    Looks like we have joined the rest of the world in having to deal with possible terrorism in our own back yard.

  5. Sanctuary 5
    15 March 2019 at 2:51 pm

    Terrorism comes to NZ in the form of right wing race hate. I guess the security services were too busy keeping an eye on Forest & Bird to spare anyone to watch racist gun nuts.

    [lprent: I’d prefer if incendiary comments were minimized on reaction posts like this. At this point there is usually too little information. ]

    • adam 5.1
      15 March 2019 at 5:35 pm

      Come on lprent that manifesto is far right hate speech.

      “To Antifa/Marxists/Communists
      I do not want to convert you, I do not want to come to an understanding. Egalitarians and those that believe in heirachy will never come to terms.I
      don’t want you by my side or I don’t want share power. I want you in my sights. I want your neck under my boot. SEE YOU ON THE STREETS YOU ANTI-WHITE SCUM”

      It’s the usual stuff from this grouping, if you take the time to look at what they are into.

      If the security services spent even half the money they spent monitoring the ‘left’, on these hate groups – then this might never of happened.

    • Michael who failed Civics 5.2
      16 March 2019 at 12:32 am

      I agree with sanctuary. The state looks left and ignores the right, if not actually condoning it.

  6. marty mars 6
    15 March 2019 at 2:59 pm

    Police advise active shooter. Stay safe.

  7. mickysavage 7
    15 March 2019 at 3:00 pm

    Christ reports of three shootings, two at mosques and one at a hospital.

    Dark times …

  8. mickysavage 8
    15 March 2019 at 3:06 pm

    Bangladeshi cricket team were at the mosque. This might be international …

    • mickysavage 8.1
      15 March 2019 at 3:35 pm

      Looks like it was an international job [edit maybe not thanks TRP]. And claims a go pro broadcast of the event live streaming to Facebook. There is also a twitter page with chilling photos of guns and gun magazines …

    • cleangreen 8.2
      16 March 2019 at 10:31 am

      Yes Micky,

      Do you recall the time that during the Pakistan vs India ‘ Play or pay’ event hit the press in 2007, as India’s and Pakistan’s cricket teams fight it out—in court cricket team were told if they return after loosing a match, and their were mumberings of some group would have their families homes set on fire?

      The current hate between the Muslim Pakistan and India governments is simmering as border shootings rise up between these two Nuclear powers.

      We are all worried, and now the hate issue has been played out in NZ sadly.

      Where the hell is the UN on this?

      Is NZ being used as a pawn?

      Our family all grieves in sadness for those who have lost their lives on our shores.

  9. WeTheBleeple 9
    15 March 2019 at 3:07 pm

    I’m angry that the climate kids have had their thunder stolen by these inhuman assholes. The situation itself hasn’t quite sunk in yet. In shock a bit I think.

    Take care of each other aye.

    • Jenny - How to get there? 9.1
      15 March 2019 at 9:31 pm

      Fascists hate popular peaceful mass movements, It wouldn’t surprise me to find that our young people’s protest for the climate inflamed these fascists and the timing of their racist attacks.

      • cleangreen 9.1.1
        16 March 2019 at 10:40 am

        Jenny exactly right.

        But when we stood with those young folks yesterday calling out for action now to stop the planet melting; and their future being ruined; – this senseless killings will make them even more resolute in their aim to change our world for our common good.

        As testimony to what we saw these magnificent young folks showed me and by wife yesterday we are much more confident the children of tomorrow will stop the oil companies killing our world as they do not care how many they will kill in their mindless greed.

        George Soros has made billions in oil and funds anyone who will destroy the movements that stand for the end of oil.

  10. Kay 10
    15 March 2019 at 3:07 pm

    Is it a normal reaction to be listening to all this happening on the radio and not be able to stop sobbing?

    What on earth can we do?

    • Rosemary McDonald 10.1
      15 March 2019 at 3:26 pm

      I’m the original toughie Kay…tears shed. There’s nothing to do but care.

    • patricia bremner 10.2
      15 March 2019 at 3:30 pm

      Kay we can support those families afterwards and realise we are not immune.
      We now know how Australia and London felt. Keep warm Kay. Treat yourself for shock. This is a horrible situation.

      • Kay 10.2.1
        15 March 2019 at 3:44 pm

        I remember watching the quake coverage with that total sense of surrealism, ‘I know it’s happening but can’t comprehend it’s happening in my own country’, yet at the same time it was completely logical and reasonable, and not even unexpected a big quake would happen in NZ.

        This though, it feels like that sense of security we had here is gone. Devastating as quakes are you can’t blame them for happening. But knowing we have people amongst us who are prepared to act out on their beliefs. However this pans out, whatever the motifs, etc, do you think we’ll ever be able to go back to how things were?

        • patricia bremner 10.2.1.1
          15 March 2019 at 4:10 pm

          Kay, No sadly no. We will always now feel that we are less safe in our own country, and for those poor souls who thought of NZ as a haven, it is awful. Kay, you are obviously a caring person, so you feel terrible for these families. That is normal. Sharing grief.

        • McFlock 10.2.1.2
          15 March 2019 at 4:33 pm

          Was just saying that to a friend – this seems so much more raw than the quake. I think it’s because quakes are just shit that can and does happen, whereas this is shit that’s not supposed to happen.

          Some arsehole just decided to make a nice part of the world a shittier place, probably because he has a small dick or some other self-perceived inadequacy.

          • D'Esterre 10.2.1.2.1
            15 March 2019 at 6:27 pm

            McFlock: “probably because he has a small dick or some other self-perceived inadequacy.”

            He’s reported as being very short. That might do it.

            I’ve read bits of his manifesto: it has eerie similarities to Islamist extremist stuff that I’ve read in the past.

            Seeing this unfold, it’s clear how absolutely bonkers it is that anyone would act on it. I wonder if that’s now occurred to these people the police have in custody.

            We lived in ChCh for some years; there’s been that white supremacist element in that city for a long time. It doesn’t really surprise me that this would happen there.

            • francesca 10.2.1.2.1.1
              15 March 2019 at 8:04 pm

              I grew up there until the age of 19
              Ever read Lynley Hood’s book”A City Possessed”?
              About Christchurch and the Creche case.She gives a good description of that underbelly element.
              That book is brilliant as a case study in mass hysteria
              But I feel sick for my home town

              • Michael who failed Civics …
                16 March 2019 at 12:34 am

                I have the same reaction. If this was going to happen anywhere, Christchurch was the place.

    • One Two 10.3
      15 March 2019 at 4:21 pm

      Completely understandable response, Kay…

      Be with other people if you can..or wish to be…

      We can all send messages of solidarity and love through our thoughts..

      We can all be thankful for each and every day we get in this mortally amazing ‘life’…while not allow events to alter how we go about living…except to become even better at it..

    • WeTheBleeple 10.4
      15 March 2019 at 4:22 pm

      You are not alone there Kay. Many report sobbing as an initial reaction. I was merely stunned till I heard about the poor chap lost his wife.

      Now I’m angry.

    • solkta 10.5
      15 March 2019 at 4:25 pm

      I’ve cried several times Kay. For the people shot, for their families, and for my country.

  11. BM 11
    15 March 2019 at 3:08 pm

    https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/b18ep4/shooting_at_the_mosque_down_deand_avenue_in/?sort=new

    Reading the reddit link, the shooter put up a video of him shooting everyone on 4chan.
    Some people saying 50 dead?

    Apparently a foreigner.

    • arkie 11.1
      15 March 2019 at 3:29 pm

      An Australian. Titled his manifesto: “the Great Replacement”. Where have we heard that before?

    • cleangreen 11.2
      16 March 2019 at 10:46 am

      Apparently the shooters were from Australia we hear. They may be originally from other countries before that. or became aussie after immigration?

  12. McFlock 12
    15 March 2019 at 3:09 pm

    This is just so fucked.

  13. Anne 13
    15 March 2019 at 3:11 pm

    Trumpism has arrived in NZ.

    • Siobhan 13.1
      15 March 2019 at 3:31 pm

      Not a time for Political point scoring maybe?

      Though if you’re going down that path how about ‘Netanyahuism’?

      I mean, to be fair, he’s overseen the shooting of more Muslims.

      http://time.com/5541069/un-israel-2018-attack-on-gaza/

      [lprent: It’d be wise to avoid it. I tend to take a dim view of it. ]

    • Jenny - How to get there? 13.2
      15 March 2019 at 9:57 pm

      Will Donald Trump be joining the other world leaders who have sent personal messages of condolence to our Prime Minister?

      “There were good people on both sides”.

      As he said after a fascist murdered Heather Heyer.

      Maybe not.

    • Clive Macann 13.3
      16 March 2019 at 12:12 am

      Anne.

      Huh???
      Load of cobblers.
      Cheap shot.

  14. OnceWasTim 14
    15 March 2019 at 3:12 pm

    Ego, testosterone and increasing tribalism! (and saying that with a little grandson stuck in the middle of it)
    There’s now more than one armed offenders incident a week, and its been an inevitable consequence and outcome of the minimalist governance and preoccupation of the economic over the social. NZ’s Port Arthur moment? I thought we were better than that – apparently not.

    What’s worse is that there are actually a few easy gains the caring and sharing coalition could have made and earned a few Brownie points from – even during the first year of holding inquiries in order to formulate policy.
    This is now the year of “Do eee” apparently, and our Public Service is STILL not actually helping.

    A proper firearms register
    An Amnesty of 3 or 4 months
    A go hard recovery initiative

    Otherwise it’ll also become inevitable that we’ll see Police routinely carrying arms on their chubby little hips if they can fit them in among the spray, the taser, the handcuffs, the cable ties.

    • cleangreen 14.1
      16 March 2019 at 10:55 am

      And; – where were the ‘deep surveillance state” “five eyes” police on the tracking of these foreign shooters at? They failed us so badly here now questions must be asked of why were couldn’t detect this happening?

      Maybe Trump was right to make immigration tougher now as to stop the terrorist cells like this one getting into NZ in the first place as ‘Five eyes’ obviously cant/wont do it.

  15. Ad 15
    15 March 2019 at 3:29 pm

    This will change our gun laws like Aramoana.

    It will change the SIS and GCSB in our terrorist suspect mapping.

    This will change NZ.

  16. Sanctuary 16
    15 March 2019 at 3:31 pm

    One chap on the radio says the Imam of the mosque says 100 casualties at the Hagley Park Mosque alone. Also attacks on a school and the hospital and a bomb in car that crashed full of (police?) bullet holes.

    Jesus Christ.

    If true, this is a coordinated terror attack.

    • McFlock 16.1
      15 March 2019 at 3:35 pm

      Bear in mind that details will be confused as media speaks to lots of people who are in shock. It will be hours before we know how many assholes, how many places, etc. It still could be one major asshole on one place, and everything else is just confusion reining.

      All we know at this stage is that people were hurt by some piece of shit.

  17. ianmac 17
    15 March 2019 at 3:36 pm

    A chill spreads not only for victims today but a big change likely in the future.
    It should be very hard for such murderers to escape an island nation like NZ.

  18. mary_a 18
    15 March 2019 at 3:38 pm

    Can’t believe NZ has had two very public (random?) acts of violence in as many days. The unprovoked attack on James Shaw being the first, and now today, tragedy at the hands of gunmen in Christchurch. Absolutely shocked and sickened to the core.

    This is not the NZ way at all. Where have we gone so wrong to get to this God awful rotten state?

    My heart goes out to the victims, their families, friends and colleagues.

    • SHG 18.1
      15 March 2019 at 5:20 pm

      This is not the NZ way at all. Where have we gone so wrong to get to this God awful rotten state?

      We haven’t gone wrong. NZ isn’t responsible for this.

      The man, who identified himself on Twitter as ‘REDACTED’ from Australia (…) said New Zealand was not the “original choice for attack”, but described it as “target rich of an environment as anywhere else in the West”.

      “An attack in New Zealand would bring to attention the truth of the assault on our civilisation, that no where (sic) in the world was safe, the invaders were in all of our lands, even in the remotest areas of the world and that tehre was no where (sic) left to go that was safe and free from mass immigration.”

      https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/world/gunman-who-opened-fire-on-christchurch-mosque-addresses-attack-in-manifesto/news-story/70372a39f720697813607a9ec426a734

      ob_disclaimer: everything we see, hear, and read about this in the near future may turn out to be fabricated

      Summary: white dude born on Aboriginal land travels to Kai Tahu land and kills people because immigrants

      • miravox 18.1.1
        15 March 2019 at 5:34 pm

        “NZ isn’t responsible for this.

        NZ is responsible for this. We tolerate Nazis

        • Incognito 18.1.1.1
          15 March 2019 at 11:22 pm

          Yes, it is ours to deal with but it will be like grabbing a fistful of water and trying to squeeze it or punching water trying to hurt it and forcing it into obedience. This is why it is aptly named the paradox of tolerance or the paradox of freedom; like democracy, it takes eternal vigilance.

          • cleangreen 18.1.1.1.1
            16 March 2019 at 11:13 am

            Perfectly said Incognito;

            We must learn again now; President Jefferson’s words,
            “The price of freedom and democracy is constant vigilance.”

            or; “Freedom is our most precious commodity and if we are not eternally vigilant, government will take it all away. Individual freedom demands individual responsibility. Lyn Nofziger

            or; – Freedom exists only where the people take care of the government. – President Woodrow Wilson

          • miravox 18.1.1.1.2
            18 March 2019 at 6:52 pm

            I’m sort of with Karl Popper here – something like – we can’t tolerate what leads to our (or someone else’s) demise? However, yes, its not a clear where what we don’t want to tolerate tips into intolerable.

            imo, it’s pretty clear that in terms of denigrating Muslim New Zealanders in public discourse & deeds, that tipping point was reached quite some time ago. In private life, I have close relatives that no longer speak with me because I called them on their general racism and bigotry. It’s not easy, but ultimately, removing conflict between obligation and what I believe was worthwhile.

            In the end we can intellectualise all we like, but as another man famous for an “eternal vigilance” quote, (in 1790) also said

            “In times of change, learners shall inherit the earth, while the learned are beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists.”
            ― John Philpot Curran

            The nature of the paradox of (in)tolerance is the same but different. Grabbing that fistful of water might be more difficult than ever.

      • lprent 18.1.2
        15 March 2019 at 5:42 pm

        He was born in aussie. Raised in Christchurch. There are 4 arrested.

        We own it. It needs to be strongly and extremely excised.

        • Dennis Frank 18.1.2.1
          15 March 2019 at 5:50 pm

          Yes, Paul Buchanan just told RNZ this info from the dude’s online profile. It’s a cell thing, he reckons. Sorta like a wasp-nest, needs cauterization. We’ve been tolerating this subculture in Chch a very long time, eh? That will have to change, totally. Zero-tolerance.

        • SHG 18.1.2.2
          15 March 2019 at 7:05 pm

          Sigh. I was hoping he had hopped off a plane last month.

          • Ignus 18.1.2.2.1
            15 March 2019 at 7:54 pm

            Too well fit “islamophobic” narative, almost as Breivik: From his prison cell, the confessed mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik in January 2014 circulated a letter in which he repudiated all association with the Counterjihad and anti-Islamists. He gloated over how easy it was to fool the Western mainstream media (MSM) into supporting his intended witch-hunt on peaceful anti-Islamists: The idea was to manipulate the MSM and others so that they would launch a witch-hunt and send their <> against our opponents. It worked quite well. (…) I tried to hint about this double-psychology, by quoting <> x number of times, but I couldnt make it more obvious, as it had to be credible to the aggressive army of 2000 media psychopaths (the MSM-rape-squad). The <>-tactic is one of the oldest in the book.

    • Rae 18.2
      15 March 2019 at 9:13 pm

      I’ve gone so far as to question if there is a connection. I expect police will consider seeing as both so out of the ordinary for NZ

  19. arkie 19
    15 March 2019 at 3:38 pm

    Don’t name mass shooters, criminologists’ study advises media

    media coverage of mass shootings has three main consequences:

    – It encourages a competitive mindset in the gunmen, who try to kill a greater number of victims than other shooters have.
    – It gives the killers fame.
    – It serves as an “advertisement” for violent behavior through contagion, as ideas about mass shootings “spread through society and permeate the minds of at-risk individuals,” resulting in copycat effects.

    Many gunmen have “identified previous mass shooters as role models,” Lankford said in the interview.

    https://www.ncronline.org/news/media/dont-name-mass-shooters-criminologists-study-advises-media

    • Puckish Rogue 19.1
      15 March 2019 at 4:02 pm

      This. Don’t give the POS what he wants. Keep him anonymous.

      • lprent 19.1.1
        15 March 2019 at 4:05 pm

        Yep. The police and the courts need to know. No-one else needs to know about dimwit(s)

        • greywarshark 19.1.1.1
          15 March 2019 at 7:20 pm

          I think that word that arkie put ‘contagion’ is very apt. It describes that follow-on effect that is inexplicable and often seen.

        • patricia bremner 19.1.1.2
          15 March 2019 at 9:12 pm

          I was so pleased that Facebook took down his page and live stream.

      • WeTheBleeple 19.1.2
        15 March 2019 at 5:00 pm

        I propose they get put in an anonymous hole, the courts enforce name suppression, and they are forced to see all the news media that don’t have a single word to say about them ever.

        The event is covered, the need to know, the motive if discovered, but after that, nothing. Not their silly rantings, nothing.

        Ghosted.

        See that inspire their 4chan buddies.

        • arkie 19.1.2.1
          15 March 2019 at 5:17 pm

          Damnatio memoriae

        • cleangreen 19.1.2.2
          16 March 2019 at 11:21 am

          Yes WeThe Bleeple.

          Don’t feed a fire with oxygen and it is extinguishes it.

          Ignore the ‘extremists’ as they do in the ‘civic unrest hot spots’ of the world do.

          They want press on them and we want to not give it to them.

      • Sabine 19.1.3
        15 March 2019 at 5:30 pm

        Make his face known as the ‘invader of Christchurch’ and then lock him up and loose the key.

        He should never be given the chance again to walk the earth in polite company.

        He is a terrorist. Nothing more nothing less.

        • Puckish Rogue 19.1.3.1
          15 March 2019 at 5:35 pm

          No arguments from me ref the sentence but giving this guy any sort of fame is what he wants

          • Sabine 19.1.3.1.1
            15 March 2019 at 5:42 pm

            i would like his face on telly so that people can see what a white terrorist looks like, Cause that is one the things we have issues with often times, we have no issues parading the pictures of brown people, of ‘others’ but we do have issues when it is those that look like us and who commit crimes ‘to protect our way of life’.

            Well excuse me if that white piece of human trash is nothing more then a terrorist, a killer and should be treated as we would do with any other terrorist killer – especially those that ‘we fight’ in our war on terrorism. .

            • Puckish Rogue 19.1.3.1.1.1
              15 March 2019 at 5:46 pm

              Don’t get me wrong I don’t think any school shooters, terrorists, mass murderers etc should be publicized, whatever their skin colour is, because they want publicity and in case it encourages other copy cats but I get your point

              • Sabine …
                15 March 2019 at 5:58 pm

                i think we should call him what he is

                terrorist.

                and then we should treat him as we do with terrorists that are brown skinned and not from a western first world country.

                we don’t say the thing about ‘copy cat’ and bullshit about terrorists from muslim countries. Right? When they do this type of harm we tend to bomb their countries to protect our interest and we all know their ages, their names, their faces, their homecountries etc etc etc.

                So yeah, i want to see his face, so that next time something happens and people want to pretend ‘we’ white people don’t do that shit, we can actually pull up his face and say , yes we do.

                Everything else is just us trying to hide the fact that we breed terrorism as any other country can.

                a bit like in the states, where that kid (dylan roof) that shot up the african american church gets taken for a burger by the cops on one side and a twelve year old kid (tamir rice) with a toy gun gets shot in a play ground. Teh only difference, one was white. Guess who?

                No, the white race needs to admit that we have an issue, and it is predominantly white male who tend to shoot up places in order to protect the white race, or for some other grievance.

                In saying that i think the only picture that should ever be shown is the Mug shot from the booking, no photos from the past, or from childhood or any of that shit. Just hte booking photo. So that people know that terrorism and racial hate does also come in white skin.

      • Sabine 19.1.4
        15 March 2019 at 5:31 pm

        the guys on 4chan that breeds these Ersatz Nazis already know him.

  20. Sanctuary 20
    15 March 2019 at 3:40 pm

    Stuff reporting nine dead.

  21. ianmac 21
    15 March 2019 at 3:44 pm

    I have visited mosques in several countries and been treated with warmth and courtesy. The huge beauty and simplicity in each place seemed to represent the depth of faith and I liked the sound of the five daily calls to prayer. Impressive lasting admiration.
    Seems so deeply wrong for the people to be so hurt.

  22. mosa 22
    15 March 2019 at 3:50 pm

    Christchurch suffering yet again this time at the hands of deranged people.
    My friends have kids locked in their schools and pre school.
    Our country is changed and this city once again will have to recover from tragedy.

  23. Sanctuary 23
    15 March 2019 at 3:52 pm

    You saying he lived streamed it to FB? Holy hell.

  24. Peter 24
    15 March 2019 at 4:04 pm

    “More than 500,000 firearms, worth $242 million, have been legally imported into New Zealand over the past decade, newly obtained figures have revealed.

    Around 55,000 new firearms – including high-powered hunting rifles, shotguns, pistols, semi-automatic weapons, and restricted airguns – come into the country every year, according to data obtained from Customs under the Official Information Act (OIA).”

    Apparently there are more than 1.7 million guns in New Zealand.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11526693

    • Puckish Rogue 24.1
      15 March 2019 at 4:18 pm

      I don’t know (of course) but I suspect its not the legally owned, law abiding citizens causing the issues with firearms so any changes in the law need to be focused on the criminals using the firearms plus more money spent on mental health issues also wouldn’t go astray

      For instance 5 year minimum incarceration for possessing a firearms or for stealing a firearm or illegally selling a firearm etc etc

      • lprent 24.1.1
        15 March 2019 at 5:47 pm

        I will take a bet that the weapons in this case will be legal.

        This isn’t hard to guess. Virtually all malicious deaths and injury are from legal held weapons in NZ.

        This isn’t hard to know. Just and listen in district or high courts…

        • Dennis Frank 24.1.1.1
          15 March 2019 at 5:55 pm

          So we can expect to see gun-nuts on the news & current affairs shows explaining that machine-guns don’t kill people, wackos do. Well today’s other shooter, who they don’t seem to have caught yet, used a shotgun. Ideology created this outcome, not mental illness – although you can forgive folks for saying `what’s the difference?’

        • Jenny - How to get there? 24.1.1.2
          15 March 2019 at 10:19 pm

          lprent 24.1.1
          15 March 2019 at 5:47 pm
          I will take a bet that the weapons in this case will be legal….

          How these people got their weapons must be a big part of the investigation into the committing of this atrocity.

          The public need to know.

          In my opinion, every person who supplied guns to these people, needs to be investigated and tried, under the Suppression of Terrorism Act.

    • greywarshark 24.2
      15 March 2019 at 5:06 pm

      The government, one of them. was considering limiting gun sales and importations but didn’t feel strong enough to manage it. Cooked spaghetti they are. All bent and curvy.

      • Michael who failed Civics 24.2.1
        16 March 2019 at 12:39 am

        The government knew that the right-wingers in Parliament would put a stop to any steps to regulate gun ownership. Sure enough, Invercargill’s highly-respected MP, Sarah “50 Shades of Grey” Dowie was trying to whip up “recreational hunters” last week.

    • greywarshark 24.3
      15 March 2019 at 9:19 pm

      I wonder if these guns have planned obsolecence like my electric kettle? If only they would collapse and fall apart in three years. Why can’t we bring the imports down?

    • Instauration 24.4
      15 March 2019 at 10:02 pm

      Nice quote in the article referred by Peter, attributed to David Tipple of
      Christchurch – Gun City;

      “We have a lot of firearms. New Zealand has one of the highest rates [of gun ownership] per capita in the world and we’re good with it – it’s not doing any harm,” said Mr Tipple.

      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11526693

  25. Peter Christchur8 25
    15 March 2019 at 4:06 pm

    It’s about time the brakes were put on sites that promote anti Muslim hate speech like Whale Oil. They have good on their hands now.

    [lprent: From the context I suspect you meant ‘blood’ rather than ‘good’ ]

    • Peter Christchur8 25.1
      15 March 2019 at 4:28 pm

      Yes. My apologies for miss spell.

      I sometimes that site as it has occasional good political content, but really, the hate speech there needs to be read to be believed. Time to clamp down on hate speech and firearms.

      • Sam 25.1.1
        15 March 2019 at 4:42 pm

        The first opportunity to make recommendations is with the coroners report or it can be kicked up to a parliamentary inquiry, and if it’s found the tighter speech and gun control is required then that would be expected.

        Seeing as it’s still early days I’d suggest not jumping off to conclusion cliff.

    • Muttonbird 25.2
      15 March 2019 at 5:13 pm

      I agree. The idea that blog hosts merely provide a platform and are not responsible for the promotion of racism and intolerance by their commenters needs to be tested.

      I can think of a couple of blogs which should be shut down immediately!

      • Puckish Rogue 25.2.1
        15 March 2019 at 5:37 pm

        Needs to be a very high bar to cross for that to happen

        • Muttonbird 25.2.1.1
          15 March 2019 at 5:50 pm

          To shut down a blog? If it can be proved that moderation is inadequate or complicit in hate speech being consistently present on their blog then I think the HDCA should have the power to shut blogs down.

          I think you know the type of online behaviour I’m referring to. Thing is, if present in everyday life, hate speech legitimises and encourages hateful action.

          That’s what happened today.

          • Puckish Rogue 25.2.1.1.1
            15 March 2019 at 6:02 pm

            If that speech breaks the law then sure but I don’t want to see this tragedy being used to shut dissent

          • lprent 25.2.1.1.2
            15 March 2019 at 6:14 pm

            Pretty hard for a court in NZ to shutdown 4chan – which would be my primary target. It is possible to shut blogs offshore, but essentially it is VERY difficult, and then they just move URLs and countries. The only viable targets would be the blogs hosted in NZ – which just means that it becomes a reason to move them offshore.

            It’d be better to provide a better way of informing blog owners of relevant objectionable material – and for Netsafe to receive some training in what they are obliged to do.

            To date I have received exactly one request under the HDCA to pass on to a author. None of the information provided was in conformance with the Act – which has some specific details about what must be provided. So I didn’t even bother to think about passing it onwards, but provided a response pointing out the minimum that they needed to do.

            Also it was clearly political.

      • WeekendWarrior 25.2.2
        15 March 2019 at 10:55 pm

        If you use the same handle on other blogs then the most despicable comment I’ve read today has come from you Muttonbird – over at KB, something along the lines of “this was your people, own it” in response to Tallman. A comment which David has rightly removed. Utterly disgusting.

      • Incognito 25.2.3
        15 March 2019 at 11:29 pm

        Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

  26. Dennis Frank 26
    15 March 2019 at 4:17 pm

    Lisa Owen just reported on Checkpoint (RNZ cancelled The Panel) that the Australian in custody has a twitter account which refers to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Replacement_conspiracy_theory

    So anti-islamic terrorism. Sounds like the Bangla Desh cricket team got out okay, fortunately.

    She’s also reported live tv of the shooting broadcast as it happened, which suggests this shooter was wearing a body camera to televise the operation.

    • WeTheBleeple 26.1
      15 March 2019 at 4:25 pm

      Oh Dear. That is truly fruitloop territory.

    • Cinny 26.2
      15 March 2019 at 5:09 pm

      ChCh is unfortunately known for neo nazi’s.

      • te reo putake 26.2.1
        15 March 2019 at 5:15 pm

        Whoa there, in his manifesto he wants it made clear he’s not a Nazi, he’s a Fascist. World of difference, apparently.

        • McFlock 26.2.1.1
          15 March 2019 at 5:20 pm

          One eats bratwurst, the other spaghetti. Totally distinct.

          Whatever he self-identifies as, we wouldn’t want to hurt this festering anal pustule’s reputation by using the wrong word.

        • Cinny 26.2.1.2
          15 March 2019 at 5:23 pm

          Now I’m confused. I thought a fascist is pretty much the same as a neo nazi.

          Is a fascist the behaviour and a neo nazi a brand? Kind of thing.

          Edit… they are now reporting he is a white supremacist

          • McFlock 26.2.1.2.1
            15 March 2019 at 5:38 pm

            Basically the same, but neonazis lost a bit of their aura when punching one became a joke.

            Not so attractive to sad little supermen worried about disappearing from history without leaving a whisper of a trace.

          • greywarshark 26.2.1.2.2
            15 March 2019 at 9:23 pm

            Nazis are extreme to scream, and Neo Nazis are warming up to be better.

        • SHG 26.2.1.3
          15 March 2019 at 5:24 pm

          Claiming to represent “millions of European and other ethno-nationalist peoples”, he said “we must ensure the existence of our people, and a future for white children”.

          Anyone who throws the 14 around like that is a Nazi whether or denies it or not.

        • Sabine 26.2.1.4
          15 March 2019 at 5:33 pm

          well i guess cheap Ersatz Nazi does not have the right ring to it.

  27. Sanctuary 27
    15 March 2019 at 4:17 pm

    Jacinda is repeatedly using the word “unprecedented” I take that to mean worse than Aramoana.

    • greywarshark 27.1
      15 March 2019 at 5:15 pm

      You can be very irritating Sanctuary. Have you ever realised that?
      You tend to stick pins into society wherever it is vulnerable. This has no connection with Aramoana except that there is a gun involved.

      This occasion is concerning for much more than the gun as a weapon. It is that it happened at all, who, why, and what we are going to do about it. I think 3 minutes of silence over NZ to show our sorrow.

      And this man should be locked up in solitary with a repeat of a message that when you kill others you kill part of yourself and your own soul. Just over and over for a while. With breaks then a repeat asking why. And why do you hate people. And does that mean that you hate yourself. Why is that. Do you feel you are not a good person so you kill someone to prove that? The sort of questions that prisoners are probably never confronted with, and should be.

      And then if it is an Australian ship him back over there after a short period of solitary detention.

      • North 27.1.1
        15 March 2019 at 6:48 pm

        Respectfully Greywarshark I think Sanctuary’s comment simply asks whether “unprecedented” means more fatalities than Aramoana. Have to say I don’t feel irritated by that question. Shocked and close to tears for the victims and for those whose lives changed forever only five hours ago – for me that covers it I think.

        • greywarshark 27.1.1.1
          15 March 2019 at 7:17 pm

          Why bring Aramoana up at all? I despise the type of reporting that brings in other fatalities and ranks them – this is the worst since ..five, ten years ago when…. People or person, they have our concern and sympathy now no matter how many.

          We know that there have been other sad and mad events in NZ. It just is better to not refer to them at present.

          • North 27.1.1.1.1
            15 March 2019 at 8:28 pm

            You didn’t listen at all did you GWS ? Frankly I have nought but contempt for wahanui like you GWS who drag up your petty. petty, petty historical (hysterical) prior shit about others (Sanctuary in this instance) and insist on giving it a scummy, prideful outing in moments of “unprecedented”……get it GWS……fucking “unprecedented” horror and tragedy.

            Your narcissistic attempt to take cover is risible.

      • Sanctuary 27.1.2
        15 March 2019 at 7:53 pm

        What are you talking about about dude? it is called listening for the meta, and sadly it was a prescient reading of the Prime Minister’s words.

        I brought up Aramoana because it was, until today, our worst massacre – giving some context, in my thinking, to the PM’s use of the word “unprecedented”.

      • Muttonbird 27.1.3
        15 March 2019 at 7:57 pm

        +1. Sanctury is an outlier. Normally I don’t read what that commenter says but today yours is a relevant observation.

    • Jenny - How to get there? 27.2
      15 March 2019 at 10:38 pm

      Sanctury, When the Prime Minister uses the word “unprecedented” I take that to mean worse than the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, which was till now the biggest terrorist attack in New Zealand’s modern history.

  28. Jimmy 28
    15 March 2019 at 4:28 pm

    This is a sad day for New Zealand. Possibly the equivalent of our 9/11.

  29. Brutus Iscariot 29
    15 March 2019 at 4:35 pm

    28 year old Australian man

  30. mosa 30
    15 March 2019 at 4:45 pm

    CNN has Jacinda in Kenya ??? and has a long flight back to Wellington.

    • Michael who failed Civics 30.1
      16 March 2019 at 12:43 am

      Not quite: New Plymouth. Less civilised but definitely closer than Kenya.

  31. nzsage 31
    15 March 2019 at 4:51 pm

    I’m in total shock yet seething with anger.

    What can you say at a time like this other than my thoughts and prayers are with all those impacted by this cowardly act of barbarism.

    Sad, sad day for New Zealand.

    • Sam 31.1
      15 March 2019 at 5:02 pm

      Security expert Paul Buchanan claims security and Intelligence services haven’t just dropped the ball, it’s gone right through 6 floors in to the basement. We’ve misdirected so much human and capital resources to surviveling poor brown and Muslims that we failed to protect New Zealanders from the correct terrorist which has been today been revealed as white supremacist terrorists. So no more dam excuses, its time to play the game correctly and play to win.

      • Dennis Frank 31.1.1
        15 March 2019 at 5:34 pm

        Yes, in his interview on Checkpoint he discussed the technical side of automatic weapons training in respect of where the attacker got it. Apparently the aussie has been living here awhile – someone discussed his twitter feed earlier – he mentioned that he found this country was ripe with targets. A eyewitness said he was small – 1.5m.

        Also discussion of his social niche (skinhead/supremacist) and an RNZ reporter at the other attack site said a guy drove up in a tradesman’s van, yelled out at the bystanders & cops that he was `here to celebrate’. A cop with a gun took off on foot to see where he disappeared too (perhaps no cop car was available).

        They also recently clarified that the Bangla Desh cricket team was actually in transit to the mosque as the shooting happened. Paul Buchanan just now talking about a cell of ten people, cops have four in custody…

        • rik 31.1.1.1
          15 March 2019 at 9:24 pm

          the weapons i supect were sold pre1992 those high capacity magazines were easy to get in the 1980s i remember you pick up ak copy semi auto for around 350 dollars it came with 2x 30 round mags at sportsways guns from that era a lot went underground when the 10 year fire arms licensees came in even the NZ army sold there surplus slr s on to the civilian market if i remember right about 12000 the guns hes using are not recent imports the horse bolted a long time ago there was never any need for semi auto fire arms in nz

          • rik 31.1.1.1.1
            15 March 2019 at 9:42 pm

            i think the biggest fuck up was allowing fire arms to be sold literally on trade and exchange far to many vanished they should have restricted the second hand market to the gun shops

            • Sam 31.1.1.1.1.1
              15 March 2019 at 11:10 pm

              New Zealand has an agricultural society that is unable to produce an industrial revolution or a small arms industry so we lacked the gun culture with the wealth of skilled gun smiths and operators that other advanced economies that suffer from the holy trinity of low wage McJobs, Perceptions of immigrants taking jobs white people used to do, and persistent unemployment. We have poverty issues we just never had the gun culture to go with it until now, technology has today, over taken The Laws of the Land. Whether it be the airplane, the ship, or Internet / communications, it would be almost impossible controlling any one of those lanes of communication at least I couldn’t imagine away of stoping guns germs and drugs at the boarders. Perhaps it’s time to ban semi automatic weapons. Since Australia banned semi automatic weapons they haven’t had a mass shooting. Now it’s our turn.

              • patricia bremner …
                16 March 2019 at 7:26 am

                Sam your stream of conscious thought echoes my own. Yes, we should ban automatic weapons. It is one meaningful thing we can do.

              • rik …
                16 March 2019 at 9:51 am

                semi auto were restricted to 10 round only in 1992 those guns pre date those laws its hard to change the laws when half of the guns in the country vanished in 1991 we had 350000 licenced gun owners as soon as the 10 year license came in that number halved and those guns vanished gun were not registered the number of guns held was not known i had 7 at one point until i sold them all nz never had a buy back scheme like Australia so there still out there.

              • rik …
                16 March 2019 at 10:19 am

                we never had a buy back after david malcom grey but this guy would have found other ways truck bomb look at Europe they don’t need guns

              • Sam …
                16 March 2019 at 12:32 pm

                Yeah, the gun was legal to purchase, the magazine wasn’t. One is easily banned where the other is easily fabricated. The former being the proper course of action.

            • Jim 31.1.1.1.1.2
              16 March 2019 at 9:38 am

              I suspect the firearms and Magazines were new, for some weird reason in NZ high capacity magazines are able to be purchased by anybody no license required, it only becomes illegal when you put the into a rifle, looked like a newish AR15 to me when I accidentally watched the live stream link.

      • Muttonbird 31.1.2
        15 March 2019 at 6:09 pm

        That what I feel. White supremacist hate speech has been so normalised in NZ that we just scroll past it when we read it, and recently are not allowed to criticise it as in the case of Southern and Molyneux. We’ve failed to recognise hate speech for what it clearly is.

        Their ideas legitimise and encourage these types of horrific outcomes. They and their apologists are no better than the hardcore Imams of ISIS and co, who create lethal doctrines and the butchers who carry out their bidding.

        • Incognito 31.1.2.1
          15 March 2019 at 11:38 pm

          We’ve failed to recognise hate speech for what it clearly is.

          No, we failed in dealing with it, and we still do.

      • Sam 31.1.3
        15 March 2019 at 6:33 pm

        My mother went to a Christchurch primary school back in the 50’s when she claimed a teacher encourage a student to spit on her. First time I ever went to Christchurch a young block followed me into the toilet to tell me I shouldn’t be in here. Anecdotal I know but the denial of white supremacy in Christchurch New Zealand can no longer be tolerated. Idiocy is a failing of the mind. Foolishness is deceiving ones self about not living up to your own character traits and collectively we deceive ourselves.

        A few years ago there was a brutal assault on an Asian student by self professed skin heads that gaurnered less attention than the poverty shaming that was and still is spread all over The New Zealand Herald. Clearly the oxymoronic named “intelligence” services failed to do a proper risk assessment until they are brought kicking and screaming to the big game.

        Realistically the terrorist cell got busted before they could get really organised and there needs to be sufficient resources bought to bear in a show of force so dominant across Christchurch and the entire nation that any one with even a whisper of muh supremacy will feel the wrath of God up them before they even think about picking up a gun.

        • rik 31.1.3.1
          16 March 2019 at 10:27 am

          crusaders better change there name

          • Sam 31.1.3.1.1
            16 March 2019 at 12:25 pm

            If this is your your first time living under a high terror alert, consider switching off Mike Hosking, Heather Du Plisse Alen, Barry Soper, or any other FOXNews style presenter miss-selling the war on terror.

    • A 31.2
      15 March 2019 at 5:33 pm

      Yeah that’s about what I’m feeling.

      My thoughts go out to the victims families.

  32. Cinny 32
    15 March 2019 at 4:58 pm

    Shooter had a go-pro and posted footage on the social media. I strongly suggest people do not watch that footage. Made the mistake of clicking play and it’s really shaken me up.

    Much much love to all of those who have suffered loss or hurt from this disgusting attack. Our prayers are with you all.

  33. vto 33
    15 March 2019 at 5:07 pm

    How incredibly sad and my thoughts out to the victims to the maximum extent.

    .. a late change of direction saw me just miss going through the middle of one of these …. those around me still in lockdown across the city …

    I think this will almost break a lot of Christchurch people – still very tender post-earthquake, untouchably tender. It will be too much. Tears will be everywhere.

    • marty mars 33.1
      15 March 2019 at 5:16 pm

      Hope you’re okay mate. Yes the trauma from this will reverberate through Christchurch and break people. So many victims.

      • vto 33.1.1
        15 March 2019 at 5:31 pm

        Yes, we’re good thanks marty. I always wondered what it must be like to live through one of those shootings in your community, and now here it is… it is a truly scary thing, and its proximity is extremely unnerving… so very unnerving ….. so close to me and whanau .. we go to those localities and live in the area … it is in our home it is on our doorstep …

        I suspect it may be a quiet weekend around these parts

        • patricia bremner 33.1.1.1
          16 March 2019 at 7:31 am

          Remember, for everyone who behaves in this cruel way towards their fellow humans there are thousands who feel love and compassion, and that will prevail.

  34. Ankerrawshark 34
    15 March 2019 at 5:20 pm

    Unbelievable. Absolutely heinous crime……….truly dreadful

  35. bwaghorn 35
    15 March 2019 at 5:20 pm

    Still want to live in a country without the death penalty.
    Caught with blood soaked hands and most likely proud of it . A quick trial shoot it and chuck it in a hole.

    • Cinny 35.1
      15 March 2019 at 5:29 pm

      Nope, jail him somewhere in the north island, and don’t let him have segregation or solitary.

      • bwaghorn 35.1.1
        15 March 2019 at 5:34 pm

        Why ? Give him the chance to poison other minds ??
        Dont be so gutless as to use already messed up people to clean up the mess .
        If my dog bites I would be the one to shoot it .

        • Cinny 35.1.1.1
          15 March 2019 at 6:03 pm

          Personally I’m not into capital punishment, it’s too easy IMHO.

          I don’t think he’d make much progress trying to brainwash people in a jail up north.

          Feeling sick now, don’t like thinking like this. Time for me to cruise for a bit. Much love

          • marty mars 35.1.1.1.1
            15 March 2019 at 6:57 pm

            Yes I agree. The shock is changing for me and now I’m just bursting into tears. I’ve had to explain to my son what has happened, I’ve talked to friends who were 1km away on the march. I am just devastated. I am so gutted for the people – I am so sorry that this has happened to our Muslim brothers and sisters. I am so sorry this has happened to the people of Ōtautahi/Christchurch.

        • mpledger 35.1.1.2
          15 March 2019 at 9:22 pm

          Do you really think that NZ prisoners are going to play nice with an Australian who shot other NZers? They are going to get hell in prison.

      • Sabine 35.1.2
        15 March 2019 at 5:48 pm

        actually no, do what OZ does – deport his terrorist arse back to the his country of birth.

      • patricia bremner 35.1.3
        15 March 2019 at 9:24 pm

        Cinny we should send him back to Australia.

    • Andre 35.2
      15 March 2019 at 5:35 pm

      Well, yes, doing that does satisfy some primal instincts. But in any justice system vaguely worthy of the name, there’s so many checks, balances, and safeguards that it’s a lot cheaper to just drop it in a locked hole without shooting it first. Even at $100k a year incarceration cost.

      If how a POS like that gets treated in any way influences whether other POS choose to do their shit or not (arguable), then spending the rest of a life staring at 4 blank walls is probably more deterrent than getting bumped off in a blaze of publicity.

      • bwaghorn 35.2.1
        15 March 2019 at 5:41 pm

        This is an open and shut case . No publicity is needed never speck its name . Just put it down . I bet they will be televising interviews with this rubbish within 5 years .

        • Andre 35.2.1.1
          15 March 2019 at 5:50 pm

          One of the costs of keeping a free society is that a POS like this does get publicity as they go through the justice system. So we, the people, can know what is being done in our names.

          But there’s no need to put a name or face to it. Can be just called CHCH 2019 POS 1, CHCH 2019 POS 2 … With Mr Dumpy emojis wherever an image would naturally go.

  36. Gabby 36
    15 March 2019 at 5:24 pm

    Hopefully the police will have managed not to lose any information they have gathered on this person and his eggers on.

    • North 36.1
      15 March 2019 at 8:43 pm

      Yes…..his “eggers-on”. May they be identified and exposed. Saw Paul Buchanan on TV saying that the murder video received cheering-on on whatever media it was posted to, “including by New Zealanders”.

      A mate contacted me asking if I wanted to see it. “No. Not now”. He sent it anyway. As he said in his accompanying message……”Like a video game”.

  37. SHG 37
    15 March 2019 at 5:25 pm

    …and just like that the climate protest never happened.

  38. George 38
    15 March 2019 at 5:33 pm

    Was not impressed by Gerry brownlee interview on TV today. Disgusting actually. National might want to keep him quiet until they have facts instead of conjecture.

    • mosa 38.1
      15 March 2019 at 8:47 pm

      Brownlee has NEVER been impressive ever.

      • Michael who failed Civics 38.1.1
        16 March 2019 at 12:47 am

        Standard National Party lines from Brownlee. I blame them, and Christchurch-based Nat MPs in particular, for the city’s toxic pathologies.

  39. Sabine 39
    15 March 2019 at 5:34 pm

    good grief,
    just sadness.

  40. Sabine 40
    15 March 2019 at 5:44 pm

    so the war on terror has arrived in NZ and its an Australian, with a go pro cam and white nationalist bullshit manifesto killing brown people.

    maybe we need to re-think the war on terror.

  41. Anne 41
    15 March 2019 at 5:45 pm

    The police commissioner, Mike Bush has just finished another press conference. Judging by the language used and the way he was stressing the seriousness of the situation, it sounds like the death toll from this event is high. I understand those who have died are still inside the mosques concerned.

    Four people have been detained. Three men and one woman. He stressed they can’t give any assurance yet there won’t be another attack elsewhere in NZ – words to that effect.

  42. NZJester 42
    15 March 2019 at 6:01 pm

    A lot of this can be traced back to the Dog Whistling of the Right. They tell them that all Muslims are terrorists. But these Right Wing nutters are also terrorists spurred on by the teaching of the right wing dog whistling hacks. Countries have arrested some Muslim clerics for radicalizing Muslims, What we need to see is the same done to the right-wing nutters radicalizing the neo-nazi and so-called Christians.
    There are a lot of Neo-Nazi and Christian terrorist organizations out there that should be treated the same as their Right-Wing Muslim terrorist counterparts.
    The words spilling out of the mouths of Politicians such as Donald Trump and his cronies have also helped embolden them both in and outside of the US.

    • Gristle 42.1
      15 March 2019 at 6:14 pm

      Ex-colleague of mine was stupid enough to say that Muslims are satan worshippers and deserve to die. Of course he’s a fundamentalist Christian, but otherwise would like to see himself as an an ordinary New Zealander.

      Shouting match ensued.

      • patricia bremner 42.1.1
        15 March 2019 at 9:28 pm

        I hope you won Gristle. It is a shock when you discover such attitudes.

    • SHG 42.2
      15 March 2019 at 7:07 pm


      A lot of this can be traced back to the Dog Whistling of the Right.

      Remind me who it was that campaigned on messages of “the foreigners with funny-sounding names are coming here and taking all our land” at the last election…?

      [Take the night off, SHG. Nobody is in the mood for your shit. TRP]

      • greywarshark 42.2.1
        15 March 2019 at 7:09 pm

        Don’t be stupid and petty at the same time SHG. This is a sad situation and not just a chance to make political jibes.

        • NZJester 42.2.1.1
          15 March 2019 at 7:24 pm

          Did SHG say something greywarshark? All I saw was them blowing into a small round pipe with a slit in it, but no noise seemed to come out. Was that a dog whistle in their lips?

    • Michael who failed Civics 42.3
      16 March 2019 at 12:48 am

      Agreed but we have our own versions of Donald Trump.

  43. North 43
    15 March 2019 at 6:55 pm

    Sympathise with you Gristle…..being exposed to such obscenity.

  44. greywarshark 44
    15 March 2019 at 7:07 pm

    This from Otago Daily Times. 6.29 pm
    https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/aos-dunedin-street-after-report-city-was-original-target

    In the manifesto the man says he originally planned to attack the Al Huda Mosque as a result of a post made by the Otago Muslim Association.
    The video on Facebook, he said, was labelled “Only for Muslims. Please do not redistribute”.

    However, the man said he later focused his attention further north after a trip to Christchurch.
    “After visiting the mosques in Christchurch and Linwood and seeing the desecration of the church that had been converted to a mosque in Ashburton, my plans changed,” he wrote.
    He claimed the Christchurch mosques contained “more adults and a prior history of extremism”.
    The manifesto also revealed he planned an attack on the Ashburton mosque.

    We must find ways to keep unemployed men busy in jobs. It would give them less time to travel round the place making judgments about churches, which i doubt they would ever attend anyway, and looking for targets suitable for their diseased minds. Fancy being concerned about extremism and then going to the extreme of shooting the people accused of it. How many crazies are roaming our streets?

    • Sabine 44.1
      15 March 2019 at 7:56 pm

      plenty of men who are unemployed who don’t go about terrorizing and killing people in houses of worship.

      and why single out unemployed? They might have had jobs, they might have had job opportunities but they did not want them.

      fact is we know nothing.

      but i do agree, we need to provide more and better jobs for our young people, all of them irrespective of gender, race and religion.

  45. Ovid 45
    15 March 2019 at 7:07 pm

    I have a profound sadness today. I feel so impotent in the face of all this. I wish I could do something.

  46. Katipo 46
    15 March 2019 at 7:16 pm

    There is always understandably a huge focus on the perpetrator after such events, but I just hope in the end the bigger significance is our resulting compassion, goodwill and kindness.
    Some concrete gestures on behalf of all of NZ would be nice to show our solidarity and as a kind of up-yours to those that seek to commit such atrocities.

    • greywarshark 46.1
      15 March 2019 at 7:25 pm

      Flowers to the mosque tomorrow? I think 3 minutes silence in the morning on Sunday at 11 a.m. or similar would be one way. I would also like to see a line of flags in central Christchurch, one for each country of citizens that were killed in the earthquake, and the nationality of the Muslim victims could be added. Something that stood tall and reached for the sky and lifted the memory of the victims to say they will never be forgotten.

  47. James 47
    15 March 2019 at 7:22 pm

    What a tragedy for the poor victims, their friends, their family, their community and a sad dark day for all of New Zealand.

  48. Drowsy M. Kram 48
    15 March 2019 at 7:22 pm

    Shocking for NZ – sympathy to the victims, their families, friends and all in Christchurch.

    The murderous ‘life is cheap’ ideology of terrorist groups is calculated to engender division, fear, anger, violence and HATE.

    Don’t let it.

    As per Katipo’s comment @46, be KIND to one another. On the street, in the workplace, or wherever, greet strangers with a hiya/hello, or just a smile (thanks Grey), without any expectation of a response.

    Greeting people, friends and strangers alike, acknowledges their humanity.

    Easy to say (apologies): Don’t be afraid, and help others to be brave.

    • greywarshark 48.1
      15 March 2019 at 7:29 pm

      Can’t say hello to everyone but taking time to give a smile, acknowledge someone and don’t be unhappy if they don’t respond is good. Just saying hello to people who give service, the bus driver, the checkout in the supermarket is good too.

  49. CHCoff 49
    15 March 2019 at 7:24 pm

    We need to be open to the possibility that these ‘lone nuts’ are not part of international anarachist black economy syndicates.

    As such, we should perhaps ask independent intelligence agencies from other countries, if any of them are interested in the investigations because it is in the interests of all such societies opposed to this type of terrorism to root it out.

    • Sabine 49.1
      15 March 2019 at 7:50 pm

      Nah, they are part of the incel aggrieved white male 4 chan user with economic anxiety (yes all of this is bullshit – they are simply just racist terrorist – but they are white ) who are happy to kill people for being Muslim.

      Nothing to do with international anarchist black economy.

      • Lloyd 49.1.1
        15 March 2019 at 11:46 pm

        very difficult to”root out” such terrorism. Since racism is always based on incorrect analysis of social situations, the only effective way is to make sure idiots who start talking in racist cant are forced to understand the facts. That means all racist comments must be questioned and biases exposed. The only effective way to do this is by loving your enemy.
        We have to talk it out – all of us.
        Racist rants are an attack on everyone, even the idiot ranting – after all everyone can be classified as “one of those” by someone else.
        This attack was an attack on every New Zealander and we are the attackers if we don’t do anything to stop the racist attitudes that were used to justify the attack.

        • Incognito 49.1.1.1
          16 March 2019 at 12:00 am

          Excellent comment, thank you!

        • patricia bremner 49.1.1.2
          16 March 2019 at 7:42 am

          Lloyd you are correct. If we fail to confront racism in all its guises we allow it to grow and fester. However, there are always going to be disturbed people. We need to be prepared to notice and help them before they become toxic.

  50. Rosemary McDonald 50
    15 March 2019 at 7:58 pm

    Our Prime Minister conducted herself with grace, compassion and dignity in front of a very inquiring press mob.

    We are not, as a family, inclined to praise politicians…but Jacinda Ardern earned our respect and admiration at how she conducted herself at the Press Conference.

    If she disappeared out the back for a private howl…. I hope someone gave her a well deserved shoulder.

  51. halfcrown 51
    15 March 2019 at 8:01 pm

    Well said, I thought exactly the same

    • Anne 51.1
      15 March 2019 at 8:22 pm

      She was extremely impressive. For this reason I expect both her press conferences will be widely reported around the world.

      I just feel sorry for the students who worked so hard and whose rallies were so successful today. Wiped off every news bulletin in the country.

  52. WeTheBleeple 52
    15 March 2019 at 8:08 pm

    Controlled explosion by Police. Britomart, Auckland.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12213163

  53. Muttonbird 53
    15 March 2019 at 8:09 pm

    I haven’t watched any news – I can’t.

    I hope the PM speaks as a person and not as a leader. I hope she makes the kind of ground breaking speeches which live in memory.

    The type which in this kind of tragedy is honest and says, “I am just one person, I need your help.”

    • North 53.1
      15 March 2019 at 10:06 pm

      She conducted herself in one as a human being and a leader. We had the famed “Je Suis Charlie”. If “This Is Not Us” should resonate and endure (and I suggest it should) then it won’t be unconnected to how Jacinda Ardern conducted herself.

  54. OnceWasTim 54
    15 March 2019 at 8:12 pm

    Adhern: ” This is not who we are ”
    There’s a bit of a problem with that.
    More correctly it should be:
    ” This is not who we WERE, this is not who we [presumably] want to be ”

    I know there’ll be many who’d suggest this is not the right time to question various aspects to what has just happened today. My view is that it is exactly the right time to question.
    40 people have just died (been murdered) FFS !
    .
    Paul Buchanan is on to it, why not those that should have been more aware?

    Well I’d suggest it’s the same reason that pervades the thinking and bias (in whatever form you wish to define it) in various of our public service agencies.

    Probably needs to be a bit of horizon broadening. As Buchanan suggests, this is “on US” as I listen to all the attempts to portray Tarrant as an Okker (i.e. a “THEM”)

    So ‘lest we forget’ and all that, but let’s also understand why we dropped the ball on all of this (and when we do, I think we’ll find it’s the same reason we’re failing in so many other areas (immigration, exploitation, poverty, the rich and poor divide, health outcomes, education outcomes, insurance, gender equality in the workplace,…………)

    • Dennis Frank 54.1
      15 March 2019 at 8:32 pm

      In his manifesto he describes himself as from a working-class family & a typical kiwi, according to someone who read it. He was born in Oz but grew up here, so we need to stop calling him Australian as a form of rejection. Identity politics provokes behaviour, citizenship not so much.

      Ardern’s rejection of him is thus problematic. Buchanan reckons we have to own him, and I agree. The lesson to learn is the alienating effect of subcultures. Some of us with a personal history in subcultures have learnt from experience how `us vs them’ can embed as a structural polarity in the psyche, yet can also be transcended on a developmental trajectory. We need to share that gnosis with mainstreamers now.

      Making the same point as you, essentially, just framing it differently to reflect my own take of the applied psychology…

      • OnceWasTim 54.1.1
        15 March 2019 at 8:45 pm

        Yes Dennis – we do have to “own” him,
        just as we have to own the reasons he did it, and how our ‘intelligence services’ (oxymoron maybe – and I say that with a branch of the family that’ve been employed by the spooks) have to seriously look inward – JUST AS there are a number of others in public agencies in where there are failings for exactly the same reasons. It’s not quite as simple as the boring old white men leading the charge along with their expensive baggage, but it might be a good place to start.
        As Buchanan implies, we may have been a little too preoccupied in directing our resources and prejudices towards the Islamic and their extremist elements whilst forgetting the extreme right (white supremacist element) who come from similar backgrounds from many that now run the bloody show.

        And now is the EXACT time to do it, as many of the victims would tell us.

        But yea / nah ………. next

        • OnceWasTim 54.1.1.1
          15 March 2019 at 8:59 pm

          Oh…..and now I’m watching Adhern on BBC WORLD NEWS. I just caught a comment to the effect that ” we need to focus on extremism, no matter where it comes from”
          Clearly our ‘officials; (with whom we constantly hear they have the utmost faith in – aside from the likes of a Peters or one or two other NZ1’s) have failed if that’s the case (the no matter where it comes from bit).

          YET AGAIN, those ‘officials’ with who various Minister profess to have the utmost faith in, are going to be the downfall of this coalition government if this blind faith continues.
          Where are ya Chippie? because Christ Almighty, what’s it going to take!!!!

      • Instauration 54.1.2
        15 March 2019 at 8:49 pm

        The “Crusader” subculture is problematic.
        We should not adulate Crusaders.

        • Dennis Frank 54.1.2.1
          15 March 2019 at 9:11 pm

          Possibly the local rugby team could consider a name-change? I agree the tendency of islamic radicals to use the crusader meme on the global stage is a thing. They seem to feel it provides historical continuity as context. However they polarise against westerners in general, and capitalists in particular, rather than against christians.

          Over-generalisation? Perhaps they see the USA as a christian nation rather than a secular nation? Even so, nobody is suggesting that the Chch cell is christian. White supremacy as ideology is racist. The crusaders were not racists – they were religious dissidents (Jesus told them to love their enemies, God commanded them not to kill, so they disobeyed both).

          • Instauration 54.1.2.1.1
            15 March 2019 at 9:18 pm

            There is a degree of equivalence between Jihad and Crusade.
            Appropriately the Bangladeshi Cricket Team don’t call themselves “The Jihadists”
            Crusaders stuck it to Muslims.
            Perhaps – The BNZ Crusaders should consider a re-brand !
            Least they might foster a subculture.

          • arkie 54.1.2.1.2
            15 March 2019 at 9:21 pm

            For your edification;

            “The Crusades, the Middle Ages, and the Alt Right.” The symposium was organized by Matthew Gabriele, a professor of medieval and early modern studies at Virginia Tech, who says historians need to address hate groups’ use of medieval iconography. Often, this imagery comes from the Crusades.

            He saw it in footage of the Charlottesville rally, he says: “The imagery that these white nationalist, white supremacist groups were using was really in a lot of cases very noticeably medieval.” Some of them carried “crusader shields with a red cross on it that said ‘deus vult’”—a Latin rallying cry meaning “God wills,” used by some Christian knights in the first Crusade. The red crosses evoke those worn by the Knights Templar, a Roman Catholic order that has long been fodder for myth, legend and conspiracy theories.

            Hate groups’ attempts to link modern Islamophobia to the Crusades plays off of “a much older, 19th-century style of scholarship which portrayed the Crusades in a very specific way,” Gabriele says. This older scholarship framed the Crusades as a “Christian defensive war against an aggressive, expansionistic Islam.” Hate groups use this narrative of the Crusades to say, as Gabriele puts it, “‘Look what happened then; it’s happening again now.’”

            https://www.history.com/news/how-hate-groups-are-hijacking-medieval-symbols-while-ignoring-the-facts-behind-them

            my bold

            • rik 54.1.2.1.2.1
              15 March 2019 at 10:02 pm

              we’ve just seen what happens when people become disenfranchised socially and economically the question is how did this nutter get through border security

              • Craig H …
                16 March 2019 at 10:59 am

                As an Australian, he would only have issues if someone had flagged him before travelling.

      • mauī 54.1.3
        15 March 2019 at 9:17 pm

        From all reports he is Australian, grew up there and had worked over there. Got radicalized visiting France, and chose New Zealand to live.

        Good point about sub-cultures, perhaps that was the only part “WE” played in this and have to investigate thoroughly.

      • James 54.1.4
        15 March 2019 at 9:19 pm

        He did not call himself a kiwi and news had him as a recent arrival.

      • Prickles 54.1.5
        15 March 2019 at 9:19 pm

        Channel 9 from Sydney reported earlier that he went to highschool in Grafton, NSW then travelled extensively for seven years. It seems he only recently arrived in NZ – he didn’t grow up here.

  55. Dennis Frank 55
    15 March 2019 at 8:18 pm

    Buchanan to Barry on One just now (paraphrased): `I’ve been watching the live feed he put up… there were hundreds of supporters cheering him on’.

    So the operational cell is merely the vanguard of the sub-culture. It’s that broader culture that provides the support matrix for the hate-crimes. You can imprison killers, but true-believers will just generate replacements. The establishment is just gonna have to grow the capacity for sophisticated public administration for a change.

    • Michael who failed Civics 55.1
      16 March 2019 at 12:51 am

      Good points there.

    • patricia bremner 55.2
      16 March 2019 at 7:52 am

      Am I wrong in wanting those supporters interviewed and at least asked “Please explain your support for this abhorrent behaviour?”

      • Dennis Frank 55.2.1
        16 March 2019 at 8:28 am

        No but the public will subdivide on the topic. Those of us who believe that social divides can be bridged via dialogue and understanding will be opposed by those who prefer ongoing hostility, and the latter group will use this rationale to prevent dialogue and understanding: don’t give the haters any media exposure, it just increases their public profile.

      • Wensleydale 55.2.2
        16 March 2019 at 8:53 am

        A lot of them will be ‘armchair arseholes’, happy to gleefully revel in someone else’s appalling actions because of their own racist inclinations, but too lazy, stupid or disorganised to engage in any action themselves. (Racist ideology is fundamentally stupid, and people subscribing to it tend to be either confused or just not terribly bright. And it’s easier to blame ‘the other’ for your own embarrassing life choices or lack of success.) Might be an idea for several ominous-looking men in suits to scare several shades of shit out of them by organising ‘a little chat’ though. Intelligence gathering and preventative measures, as it were.

    • greywarshark 55.3
      16 March 2019 at 11:41 am

      And what sophisticated public administration is that DF at 55? Going into the homes of all young men and getting their parents to teach them how to respect themselves and others, and that real mature people control their negative feelings and try to do something about bettering whatever is making them cross. And that their daughters and sons, should not indulge in bullying at school and anywhere. And that it is likely that these thoughts arise from attitudes and things said and seen in the home. Parents need to be aware that they are role models, and need to explain to their kids that they aren’t perfect and have to work at being balanced and the kids will learn from that. At present it seems okay to just spew anything that comes to mind, as we hear from loudmouths in the media. The white supremacists learn that behaviour is okay and if anything bothers you it’s someone stopping whitey from getting what is their birthright!

      We had the chance to have public administration that would would encourage and monetise better parenting with payments to parents with each child. That could have also set up a practice of having workshops twice a year and parents receiving the child payment attend and learn and discuss their problems. If they didn’t attend they didn’t get the child payment, if one only attended they would get only half. But government dropped child payments. They didn’t teach people about what was involved in citizenship, what government could do for people, and what it would expect from good citizens. It could never bring themselves to teach civics, and just getting education about understanding one’s own sexuality was hard.

      If public administration means more spying on people, no freedom to express an opinion about something bad or at least not satisfactory then that is not good. If it is keeping people in jail for longer then making people who have these attitudes have talking and writing counselling sessions where they have to write down proposals for a fairer and safe society and explain why there actions would not fit in, that might be a good idea.

      Will we get some intelligent response that reaches out beyond BAU – fat chance.
      Now there is a non-PC word already. We don’t get anywhere in our present society that actually makes small rules that convey a hope of perfect people with no passions outside the rules, but actually doesn’t respond to the people. It’s about the flow of money and wealth, and the wealthy will burrow through mountains to ensure it flows their way. And they will also go to war and commit atrocities as they did in Bosnia leaving blood stains that will never wash away.

  57. te reo putake 57
    15 March 2019 at 8:28 pm

    Just been talking to a mate who witnessed the latter part of the Linwood mosque attack. He was with his kids in a burger bar nearby and heard the shots. He says he watched as the shooter was disarmed and chased down Linwood Ave by people from the mosque. The coward ran to his car and took off.

    My mate is now making sure the kids are Ok; they’re young and probably don’t fully understand what has happened, but he and his partner will be watching them carefully in the next few days.

    • Dennis Frank 57.1
      15 March 2019 at 8:44 pm

      I’m puzzled at the ongoing failure of the police commissioner to reassure the public that the guy was captured, or warn them that he is still at large. Hours have passed since he jumped into his car. Public reassurance was once an essential part of police operations – does pr no longer operate as a priority?

      He told us four people were in custody without including details about whether those included the two attackers. Likewise the PM. Seems peculiar.

      • te reo putake 57.1.1
        15 March 2019 at 8:51 pm

        I think this guy was caught shortly afterwards. As I understand it, one was caught near the Deans Ave mosque, one outside Papanui High school and another on an arterial road. I suspect the Linwood Rd shooter was the latter.

        • gsays 57.1.1.1
          15 March 2019 at 11:11 pm

          I don’t anything beyond what is in the public domain.
          I wish to acknowledge the victims and families.
          Thank you to the Police for their efforts in a peaceful resolution to this aberration.

  58. georgecom 58
    15 March 2019 at 8:31 pm

    My thoughts, amongst a raft.
    Peace loving, moderate Muslims, decent folk. Always welcome in this country.
    Hateful, ignorant, violent white trash “supremicists”, never welcome in this country.

  59. Stuart Munro. 59
    15 March 2019 at 8:47 pm

    It is hard to know what make of such traumatic events, but maybe Grey’s thought – to make something good – is not misplaced.

    My first thought was to suggest we admit a few more Syrian refugees, a decent way to refute the murderers and reiterate NZ values.

    We might also look at a prisoner exchange with a majority Muslim country, to let the ignorant perpetrators learn a few long overdue lessons in common humanity.

  60. Craig H 60
    15 March 2019 at 8:49 pm

    I live down the road from the Linwood mosque, and work in the CBD – we were locked down until about 6pm, so that was very scary and very sobering.

    I hope we don’t over or under react.

  61. left_forward 61
    15 March 2019 at 9:01 pm

    This is unbelievably sad,
    So sorry for all those who suffered so much today and for their families and friends and the people of Christchurch. I hope they find peace in their love for each other.

  62. RuralGuy 62
    15 March 2019 at 9:13 pm

    Nothing changes. Sun will come up tomorrow, I’m hoping to get a bit of that rain to get a bit of autumn feed in front of the girls, I’ve got a herd test Tuesday – hopefully it’ll go good as I’m thinking about going 16 hours on the plateau farm. I haven’t heard back from the contractor to get the maize off the runoff yet, but his gear is down the road at the moment so I might just go find him tomorrow so I can nail down the harvest. I have to admit, I’m really enjoying this chiefs versus hurricanes match tonight. Nothing changes.

    I think people need to dial back the hysteria, life won’t change for most of us just because you townies don’t get along with each other. The people on this blog need to learn how to show respect for people with views different to these and hope that you’ll be accorded the same courtesy .

    • BM 62.1
      15 March 2019 at 9:16 pm

      What a dick post, grow a conscience you psychotic fucktard.

      • RuralGuy 62.1.1
        15 March 2019 at 9:23 pm

        That’s nice dear. Why would I need to grow a conscience about an event and people that have nothing to do with me? I hold no guilt saying this is unlikely to change anything in my life.

        Any particular reason you decided that name calling and hate speech is appropriate?

    • solkta 62.2
      15 March 2019 at 9:17 pm

      Go stick your head up a cow’s arse you creep.

      • RuralGuy 62.2.1
        15 March 2019 at 9:27 pm

        Why, I’ve already done a pregnancy test to send the empties away.

        • bwaghorn 62.2.1.1
          15 March 2019 at 9:41 pm

          My God I’ve seen some low life shit on the internet but you need to take a bow you are the all time champion of inappropriate trolling trying to make yourself feel big . You are less than nothing .

          • RuralGuy 62.2.1.1.1
            15 March 2019 at 9:51 pm

            Meh, nice opinion you’ve got there.

            If you think someone merely stating that this is unlikely to change their day to day activities is appropriate to engage with name calling then I feel sorry for you, because clearly you have some issues to work through.

            • bwaghorn 62.2.1.1.1.1
              15 March 2019 at 9:55 pm

              Issues yip I’ve got a few but I’m not a pathetic sad little sweety troll . So I win .

        • Drowsy M. Kram 62.2.1.2
          15 March 2019 at 9:49 pm

          49 New Zealanders murdered (so far) in an afternoon, but “Nothing changes” for RuralGuy (whataguy) – try a little kindness, mate.

          You with the sad eyes
          Don’t be discouraged
          Oh I realise
          Its hard to take courage
          In a world full of people
          You can lose sight of it all
          And the darkness inside you
          Makes you feel so small
          But I see your true colours shining through

          • RuralGuy 62.2.1.2.1
            15 March 2019 at 10:11 pm

            Rather than post unnecessary lyrics or prose, tell me what I should change and why.

            • marty mars 62.2.1.2.1.1
              15 March 2019 at 10:17 pm

              You’re a very sad man, I really feel so so sorry for you. You dont get it and maybe never will and that is your loss, it really is.

              • RuralGuy …
                15 March 2019 at 10:29 pm

                I disagree with your assessment, I just don’t think it’s within my scope of control to influence the outcome or stop a repeat. So, I’ll just keep on keeping on.

            • Drowsy M. Kram 62.2.1.2.1.2
              15 March 2019 at 10:34 pm

              I’ve already suggested what you could change.

              The ‘why‘: Imagine (if you can) that several close family members, friends, cows or favourite rugby players (whatever category is most important to you) had been gunned down this afternoon, and a few hours later someone ‘remote’ from those ‘losses’ (lets call him ‘UrbanGuy’) submits a comment on a public blog to the effect that ‘your losses mean nothing to me’.

              I can accept that your “Nothing changes” comment is truthful for you, but perhaps you could think about the effect of that comment on those who might read here having had friends or family members murdered.

              Given the circumstances, why not give kindness, or at least consideration for others, a go, if only for a few hours. What could it hurt?

              • RuralGuy …
                15 March 2019 at 10:42 pm

                But I have considered others, and in my consideration there is no need to alter anything. That’s a valid and accurate consideration.

                Life doesn’t stop. I’ve had close family pass and it didn’t stop then either, and somehow I managed to feel no anger towards others that just carried on despite my loss.

                • Drowsy M. Kram …
                  15 March 2019 at 11:05 pm

                  Fair enough – you simply wanted to make a provocative comment.

                  You write that you have considered others, but have you really? For example, have you considered the parents whose children were murdered in Christchurch today, or the children whose parents were murdered in Christchurch today? I haven’t, yet.

                  No doubt we will learn more details about today’s tragic events over the weeks and months to come, which will give you ample opportunity to trot out your “Am I bovvered?” routine, so kudos (in advance) to you.

                  Have you ever found it useful to consider events from someone else’s point of view? Maybe that’s not a useful skill in your line of work or personal life.

      • North 62.2.2
        15 March 2019 at 10:18 pm

        Casting this tragedy in a basically mocking way as you do RuralGuy seems not far from the psychopathy which marks hate speech. “My girls” ? FFS.

        • RuralGuy 62.2.2.1
          15 March 2019 at 10:34 pm

          That’s your opinion I guess, I’m inclined to think that you’ve breached the same hate speech threshold as well though. Also “my girls” is probably far easier to describe my herds of cows than posting all their indivual minda numbers.

    • In Vino 62.3
      15 March 2019 at 9:21 pm

      RuralGuy, your superior intellect, dispassionate impartiality and sense of values are an inspiration. They shine forth in the darkness like a beacon for us all to behold. I am so pleased I had the privilege of reading your post, and understanding what a mere trivialty this is – to be put into focus by juxtaposition with a rugby match. You are such a star.

      • RuralGuy 62.3.1
        15 March 2019 at 9:25 pm

        It’s a mere example that this is only a life changing event if you allow it to be. It’s not life changing for me. If you want to change your life based upon the actions of idiots, then don’t let me stop you.

        Game ended in a draw though, would’ve preferred a winner one way or the other.

        • In Vino 62.3.1.1
          15 March 2019 at 9:45 pm

          Ah well, once again you put things into focus, and allow us a new way to look at history, while maintaining a personal sense of values. I can now dismiss the death of 22million plus Russians in World War 2, the death of 6 million Jews in the holocaust, the death of 7 million other Germans (Socialists, Communists, Homosexuals, Gypsies etc..) inflicted by Hitler’s Nazis, because I should not let the actions of such idiots change my life. Why did I not see that before?
          And yes, a pity the game was a draw. A one-sided slaughter would have been so much more entertaining.
          Do I have to put a sarc tag this time?

          • RuralGuy 62.3.1.1.1
            15 March 2019 at 9:58 pm

            Put a sarc tag in if you like. Your sarcasm wasn’t missed, it was simply irrelevant and should be ignored.

            I never said that events should be dismissed, but it’s not likely to be significant in what I do and how I do it.

            If you decide to change how you live as a result of events that aren’t your choosing; then that’s your own personal choice. I’m choosing to get up tomorrow and do what I’d normally do.

            • In Vino 62.3.1.1.1.1
              15 March 2019 at 10:12 pm

              You would have fitted beautifully in Germany between 1934 and 1945, you silly boy.

              • RuralGuy …
                15 March 2019 at 10:23 pm

                If you think that insinuating that people are Nazis is clever, let me assure you it’s not. You’ve belittled yourself.

                I’m curious if you plan to go door knocking tomorrow to ensure that everyone is displaying a level of grief that meets your standard. If anyone is doing what they’d normally be doing on a Saturday, that is a sure sign that they’re nazis.

                • In Vino …
                  15 March 2019 at 10:39 pm

                  No, silly boy, I was not insinuating that you are a Nazi. Most Germans had little idea of what Nazism would bring until it was far too late. You would have had no idea at all. I wonder if you really understand ‘white supremacist’ now. Not a Nazi – just a dumb enabler.
                  I am insinuating that your attitude and shallow, self-centred thought (almost a lack of any thought at all) is precisely what allows Nazism to thrive.
                  Just as you wash your hands of any concern for what is happening here nowadays.
                  It all rebounded horribly on your ilk in Nazi Germany. I just hope that there are not many of your ilk here in modern New Zealand.

                  • RuralGuy …
                    15 March 2019 at 10:54 pm

                    Okay, got it. If your prescribed level of concern isn’t met, then you’re not a white supremacist, your only a white supremacist enabler. If you think putting labels on people is sensible or intelligent, then I pity you.

                    If we revert back to your German example, me and my ‘ilk’ would’ve lacked concern; whilst you and your ilk would’ve been sewing on your yellow star labels onto those that don’t measure up to your standards.

                    [You know what, RuralGuy? You can piss right off out of here. Permanent ban (and the sun will come up tomorrow and your girls will still look at you with their big cow eyes and think ‘what an arsehole’, just as they do every other day. I think that was your message wasn’t it? TRP]

                    • gsays …
                      15 March 2019 at 11:19 pm

                      Thanks TRP, I reckon I am a tolerant rooster, but when someone wears shit covered gumboots into your lounge, things get better when they leave.

                    • Michael who failed Civics …
                      16 March 2019 at 12:54 am

                      I was wondering how long you were going to give him.

                    • patricia bremner …
                      16 March 2019 at 8:01 am

                      Ruralguy won’t be missed one iota TRP. Thank you.

        • WeTheBleeple 62.3.1.2
          16 March 2019 at 2:18 am

          Well all have to change our lives due to the actions of cunts like you.

    • Gabby 62.4
      15 March 2019 at 9:43 pm

      Well I certainly hope everything turns out well for you rubalgoon.

    • patricia bremner 62.5
      15 March 2019 at 10:03 pm

      Rural Guy, It certainly changed for the families and friends of the 49 killed and those injured. Your post is egregious.

      • RuralGuy 62.5.1
        15 March 2019 at 10:07 pm

        I’m sure it has. Very insightful stuff. I’m not sure that changes my day to day activities though.

    • rik 62.6
      15 March 2019 at 10:09 pm

      40 people are dead you arsehole

      • RuralGuy 62.6.1
        15 March 2019 at 10:57 pm

        49 isn’t it

        • Lloyd 62.6.1.1
          16 March 2019 at 12:09 am

          RuralGuy you think that this attack won’t affect you. It will.
          Someone you know will know someone who died. This New Zealand. 2 degrees of connection and all.
          That person knowing someone who is now no longer alive will be changed, It will affect you.
          You might well know one of the dead – you just didn’t realise they were muslim.
          A dead person may have been doing some important bureacracy for you in Christchurch and you may find it doesn’t get done for a week or two…
          Security for small airliners flying in New Zealand will be beefed up and internal air flights will cost more. Might not directly affect you but it will surely affect someone you know or someone who is travelling to see you.
          Many other things will change in New Zealand in the near future. They will cost you and some of those changes will really piss you off.
          Tourist numbers might drop – you don’t care? Tourists who have visited might be just that bit more likely to buy your butter in a European supermarket…..
          Use your imagination.
          oh you haven’t got any – proved that when you showed no empathy for the deaths of those innocent people.

  63. BM 63
    15 March 2019 at 9:13 pm

    This is really sad.
    NZ Muslims are peace-loving people who mind their own business and live their own lives without aggression or hostilities to others that don’t share their faith.

    What a tragedy, so many innocent people slaughtered because of ignorance and hate.

  64. Sanctuary 64
    15 March 2019 at 9:17 pm

    49 dead. A unspeakable act has been inflicted on our country.

    We will need a full Royal Commission to get to the bottom of the intelligence failure here. No more happy incompetents playing at spying by obsessing about Nicky Hagar, Kim Dotcom and Greenpeace and hiding behind secrecy laws.

    Time for the grown ups. We need to make sure our security agencies keep us safe.

    • In Vino 64.1
      15 March 2019 at 9:24 pm

      Inclined to agree.

    • bwaghorn 64.2
      15 March 2019 at 9:45 pm

      So you are happy for the sis to have full data capture on all computers?
      I have no problem but I suspect your true lefty does.

      • Sanctuary 64.2.1
        15 March 2019 at 10:15 pm

        Grow up. 49 people died in an attack years in preparation. Finding out why the attackers were not on any watch list should be more important to you than your concern that the SIS might be interested in your pornhub habits.

        • gsays 64.2.1.1
          15 March 2019 at 11:35 pm

          Are you saying the spooks don’t have enough information on us?

          I think this is where the answer to your question is.

          The ‘intelligence failure’ has come about because of too much data and analysing the wrong crowd.

          • Incognito 64.2.1.1.1
            16 March 2019 at 12:12 am

            The wrong crowd? Says who and based on what evidence? Did the Head-Spook give a press release saying “sorry, we were barking up the wrong tree”? FFS, this is turning into a déjà vu, like Salisbury all over again.

            • gsays 64.2.1.1.1.1
              16 March 2019 at 7:07 am

              Paul Buchanan is of the opinion that the majority of the security service’s focus was on other groups rather than the white power crowd.

              My comment is intended to oppose any further surveillance or more power to the state. It has too much already.

              • aj …
                16 March 2019 at 9:28 am

                “My comment is intended to oppose any further surveillance or more power to the state. It has too much already”

                And with already very invasive spying IT DID NOT PREVENT THIS.

    • Exkiwiforces 64.3
      15 March 2019 at 10:27 pm

      It’s going to be pretty hard for the Spooks/ Police to break into a decentralised terror cell as these assholes operated in. Try to gather intelligence on such asshole organisations is like trying to a 5 Thousand piece jigsaw puzzle blindfolded while someone telling you what piece to pickup.

      In most cases like this, the pieces only fall into place after the event, but in saying that I’m very impressed at the bravery of the boys in blue from other sources and the quickness of the arrests.

      A Royal Commission needs to happen looking before this tragedy, during the tragedy and post tragedy.

      From the sounds of it these assholes have done their homework, from the layout of the mosques, to acquiring the hardware and the training to undertake to ………

      My folks are ok in CHCH and will checking on our long time Bangladesh neighbors who are tired up the main mosque in CHCH.

      Would like to say more in this, but I’ve had a skin full of piss and I’m very very fucked off atm. Trying to my feelings in check is a wee hard atm as a former resident of CHCH, someone who understands the Muslim Religion/ know a local Muslims as welll, a law briding firearm user and with St Paddies around corner. It’s ……..

      I’m popping smoke until Sunday and my apologies for my language etc etc…..

      PS. Probably shouldn’t have reply to old mate Sanctuary as I have a lot time for him or she, so my apologies to she or him.

      • Michael who failed Civics 64.3.1
        16 March 2019 at 12:57 am

        They do seem to spread a lot of electronic matter about the place. So much that the Christchurch muslim community reportedly told the cops they were being lined up for attack – and provided evidence. Guess what the cops (and the intelligence community) did with that information?

      • patricia bremner 64.3.2
        16 March 2019 at 8:13 am

        Exkiwiforces, NZers of all stripes are going to have to find ways to deal with the pain.
        It would be a strange body not to be affected.
        Find some concrete actions to counter the mean behaviour. Give fruit and vegetables to Muslim friends and neighbours. Donate to the relief fund. Just be more kind and considerate to all around you, especially those overwhelmed by grief.
        For anger, run or walk, talk it out with caring friends, clean. I clean, it uses aggression quite well.
        Loving thoughts to you and yours.

  65. Prickles 65
    15 March 2019 at 9:23 pm

    Race Unity Day at Victory Square in Nelson on Sunday. An opportunity to show our respect, solidarity and compassion.

  66. Rosemary McDonald 66
    15 March 2019 at 9:28 pm

    Garbage.

    Gratuitously graphic crap piece from Master Hehir over on Pundit.

    I’m not going to link to it…but I expected better from that particular site.

    • Dennis Frank 66.1
      15 March 2019 at 9:46 pm

      He’s just a lawyer. Mastery not evident. Is a lawyer exhibiting humanity really gratuitous, or are you projecting onto him? Seems reasonable that a rightist would find an extreme rightist incomprehensible. And I have a track record of disagreeing with him on Pundit.

  67. Dennis Frank 67
    15 March 2019 at 9:39 pm

    “He says he is acting alone, is not a nazi nor an anti-semite”. https://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/news/world/manifesto-posted-online-claims-christchurch-gunman-wanted-revenge-for-sydney-gang-rapes-and-stockholm-terror-attack/news-story/4d09f6e7131606af1cd8119aeb442f80?nk=67b05ff84cbccce9d3d362c1b353c757-1552638630

    Yet he was part of a cell. Maybe the Manifesto is dated?? Influenced by Brevik. “Repeatedly, the manifesto returns to the theme that migrants are beginning to outnumber and culturally overwhelm Europeans.” Perception, not reality.

    • Michael who failed Civics 67.1
      16 March 2019 at 1:00 am

      Somehow, I don’t think the writer’s self-diagnoses are the most reliable evidence of his actual pathologies. All we need to know is that he’s a mad bad bastard who committed an atrocity in our country – to the apparent acclaim of a lot of other mad bad bastards here and overseas.

  68. bwaghorn 68
    15 March 2019 at 9:50 pm

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12213197
    I thought it would take days but it only took hours for this aussie piece of shit to blame muslims

    • adam 68.1
      15 March 2019 at 10:31 pm

      Fraser Anning is a low life and piece of garbage.

      Mind you, all Christian Fascists are.

    • Exkiwiforces 68.2
      15 March 2019 at 10:43 pm

      FFS, As a Queensland born Australia I would like to disown this ……. …… …… ….. this piece of shit. He doesn’t speak for me or my dad who stills carries his Oz passport unlike me since I not require to carry my official and normal Australian passports now so it’s back to my kiwi one now

    • Andre 68.3
      16 March 2019 at 7:19 am

      It’s probably a bit fairer to blame a fucked-up electoral system for that swamp thing sliming up their parliament, not the ocker voters. He only got 19 actual votes, he got in by being #3 in Pauline Hanson’s party. Even that wouldn’t have got him in, except that #2 was discovered to be a Pom and got turfed out. The fact that Hanson’s party got enough votes to get into parliament is enough shame for them to carry, without adding the unintended consequences.

      https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/19-people-got-this-bloke-a-200k-job/news-story/f8d8aaa83f0c2bcab53626455a3698d6

  69. mac1 69
    15 March 2019 at 10:00 pm

    Sadly the Ides of March will resonate in our history for many years as it did in Rome with Julius Caesar. Today, the 15th of March, is a day of infamy. Along with our mourned dead lies the bloody corpse of our national innocence.

  70. mosa 70
    15 March 2019 at 10:48 pm

    Innocent lives have been extinguished today who had no chance to escape their fate.
    It makes no difference that they were Muslims from different countries they were human beings and our fellow citizens who felt safe being here and had every right to worship with out losing their lives.
    That children have also been targeted today is just incomprehensible and the pain from that will leave a very deep scar to our collective consciousness.
    My country as i knew it has died today.

  71. Mark 71
    16 March 2019 at 12:30 am

    Don’t agree a lot with what Paul Buchanan says, but he is spot on today.
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12213123

    How the fuck did these motherfuckers fly under the radar? They have been violent for a very long time, including the racist murder and beheading of a Korean backpacker.

    Their views and manifestos or whatever are all over the fucken web.

    So where was the friggin SIS and GCSB? Instead of stirring up hysteria over Huawei etc, go to where the real threats to NZ democracy are.

    “He told me they picked up an Asian backpacker and they killed him. He said he (Flewellen) was with two others.
    “Shannon said he stood on his (Mr Kim’s) throat with his boot and cut his head off with a spade.”

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/674037/Murdered-Korean-backpackers-body-found

    Looks like the GCSB is full of racist fuckwits themselves with racist notions of who can or cannot be a terrorist.

  72. WeTheBleeple 72
    16 March 2019 at 2:32 am

    Where are Kyle Chapman and all his loser mates. Don Brash and all his loser mates. Where are the ties between old white businessmen and white power thugs in NZ? How many businessmen drink with local Bikers who wear their White Power T-shirts with pride. Hmmm? NZ????

    I went to Christchurch in 1988 and while there a friend was accosted by some so-called National Front members with a knife. We kicked their asses but they were Nazi pieces of shit spouting the same xenophobic garbage all the way back then.

    Round the same time Bikers would do the dirty work of local businessmen evicting people they didn’t like, scaring off competition for women they did like, real brave stuff.

    They sold white power t shirts in the local pub. Advertised themselves proudly. Now they’ve got revenue from P and we did nothing when they were ‘just a joke’.

    That POS spouting casual racism at the neighbors party also approves of not so casual racism. Zero tolerance, call the pieces of shit out, all of them.

  73. Jenny - How to get there? 73
    16 March 2019 at 3:52 am

    The wells of hatred.

    An Australian politician has blamed the Christchurch shooting on immigration

    An emotional Waleed Aly choked back tears while calling for unity on The Project in the wake of the bloody terrorist attacks in Christchurch.

    ‘I’m gutted, I’m scared, and I’m overcome with utter hopelessness,’ the 40-year-old devout Muslim said on Friday….

    ….The Project host slammed comments made after the horrific attacks by politician Fraser Anning.

    He read out quotes that the Senator wrote on a parliamentary stationary on Friday.

    ‘Islam is not like any other faith. It is the religious equivalent of facism,’ the Senator wrote.

    ‘The real cause of bloodshed… is the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate in the first place.’

    ‘As we read in Matthew 26:52, ‘all they that take the sword shall perish by the sword’ and those who follow a violent religion that calls on them to murder us, cannot be too suprised when somone takes them at their word and repsonds in kind’

    The Project host repeated the comments saying this kind of speech incites hate.

    And of course we have our own political hate mongers here. Chief among them is the deputy Prime Minister who has made a career out of demonising immigrants.

    • patricia bremner 73.1
      16 March 2019 at 8:21 am

      Jenny, Do not put this on WP. He did not cause this. That is a tenuous bow.

  74. WeTheBleeple 74
    16 March 2019 at 3:54 am

    Of course the page is gone now, but the link reveals what was there.

    National Party, stirring up the xenophobia.

    https://www.national.org.nz/say_no_to_un_migration_pact

    • Graeme 74.1
      16 March 2019 at 8:00 am

      Bet there’s a major purge of lots of other pages too. Going to be busy people, probably why they have been so quiet.

      But things tend to linger on the net, and really pulling the page just shows that you know you are wrong. Google says the page was still there on 13/3/19 so either huge coincidence or guilty as….

      https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qy7m_5RwnwUJ:https://www.national.org.nz/say_no_to_un_migration_pact+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=nz&client=safari

      • WeTheBleeple 74.1.1
        16 March 2019 at 8:49 am

        The SIS should take names of all the nasty xenophobes who filled out that form.

        • Dennis Frank 74.1.1.1
          16 March 2019 at 9:03 am

          Those of us who oppose excessive immigration outnumber xenophobes something like a hundred to one. I have always believed in biodiversity as a good thing. I reckon we need to learn what warps good people into killers. The human side of the killer is presented here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-15/christchurch-shooting-brenton-tarrant-what-we-know/10904744

          Also here: https://heavy.com/news/2019/03/brenton-tarrant/

          “He grew up in Grafton, Australia, where he was known for his interest in fitness. He “ran free athletic programs for children,” according to The Sydney Morning Herald.”

          “According to The Australian, he was the son of a ” ­triathlon-competing father and an English-teacher mother.” Grafton residents who knew them told the Australian that Tarrant came from a “beautiful family.”

          • marty mars 74.1.1.1.1
            16 March 2019 at 9:15 am

            You’re WAY out of line imo. Ffs I hope you get banned too you wanker.

            • Dennis Frank 74.1.1.1.1.1
              16 March 2019 at 9:23 am

              To understand someone, you must first learn about them. That means facing the facts. All the relevant facts. Not just those that suit your personal ideology, Marty.

              • marty mars …
                16 March 2019 at 9:27 am

                People like you are why this happens. Dumb privileged fucks that let it go. You focus on the murderer yet fuck all about the victims STILL FUCKEN DYING. You are a disgrace.

                • Dennis Frank …
                  16 March 2019 at 9:46 am

                  Misrepresenting my view isn’t likely to help, is it? We need to learn about the psychology that transforms people into mass-murderers. Denial and evasion have been the prevalent public stance for way too long. To solve the problem, we must first understand it. That means learning about what warps good people into bad. Trying to insult anyone who illuminates the problem is destructive behaviour – why not try a constructive response?

                  • marty mars …
                    16 March 2019 at 9:55 am

                    Imo you are tone deaf and self absorbed – as I said those traits are part of the issue. Too much for you I know but today you and your types should shut the fuck up and listen – not to pale shit but Muslim people and Māori and people of colour and those who get hated on for fuck all reason. But you won’t.

                  • marty mars …
                    16 March 2019 at 10:16 am

                    And I realise you are in the majority and I am in the minority so I’ll shut up now and leave you and your mates to your best attempts to make sense of this terrorist murdering white supremacist scum.

          • WeTheBleeple 74.1.1.1.2
            16 March 2019 at 9:27 am

            To me this guy and his ilk are extreme cases of self entitlement. To believe they have the right, or even mandate, to do such things. delusional abhorrent scum. Not far removed from other entitled portions of society who persecute others as they think they are within their rights.

            Those who suffer the atrocities of one-sided war for prolonged periods are a different matter. Trauma breeds trauma. Revenge, vengeance, perpetual shit.

            This guys a fucking hobbit. I wish all the news stories would refer to him as such. Free children’s programs – highly suspect. His mindset is he can do whatever the fuck he wants, portraying an image doesn’t impress me one bit.

            “Those of us who oppose excessive immigration outnumber xenophobes something like a hundred to one.”

            Talking out the side of your mouth here. National’s track record was to bring people in in large numbers, remember. This web page showed not only xenophobic stirring for political gain, but vile hypocrisy.

            • Dennis Frank 74.1.1.1.2.1
              16 March 2019 at 9:40 am

              Both National and Labour govts have established a track record of excessive immigration driven by policy. I share your revulsion re Tarrant, but my point is that we need to learn what warped him, and since the media show his family background as good, we learn that we cannot blame them in this instance, right? No evidence that we can blame drugs, right?

              Seems to me the blame lies with the subculture and online forum that nurtures it, but other factors may yet emerge. To develop public policy to counter this trend, we need to comprehend the problem. Can’t solve it unless we do that!

          • arkie 74.1.1.1.3
            16 March 2019 at 10:12 am

            Oi Dennnis FFS

            Don’t name mass shooters, criminologists’ study advises media

            media coverage of mass shootings has three main consequences:

            – It encourages a competitive mindset in the gunmen, who try to kill a greater number of victims than other shooters have.
            – It gives the killers fame.
            – It serves as an “advertisement” for violent behavior through contagion, as ideas about mass shootings “spread through society and permeate the minds of at-risk individuals,” resulting in copycat effects.

            Many gunmen have “identified previous mass shooters as role models,” Lankford said in the interview

            https://www.ncronline.org/news/media/dont-name-mass-shooters-criminologists-study-advises-media

            • Dennis Frank 74.1.1.1.3.1
              16 March 2019 at 11:15 am

              Since when have denial and suppression ever worked as public policy? Nobody would ever expect a criminologist to see the big picture – specialists are trained to avoid the big picture. They specialise. Anyone who thinks public policy ought to be formulated by specialists is being silly. Public policy requires designers to generalise.

              • arkie …
                16 March 2019 at 11:25 am

                If you read the link you would know that’s not what they’re advocating. And I’m calling you out, not talking about ‘public policy’ FFS.

                You have thoughtlessly named the perpetrator several times in this thread, as well as posting links to foreign media who are doing exactly the wrong thing. Exactly the opposite of what the criminologists have been trying to recommend for decades.

                We can discuss the issues that come out of this act of terrorism without naming or discussing the upbringing of the perpetrator.

                • Dennis Frank …
                  16 March 2019 at 2:11 pm

                  I didn’t name the perpetrator thoughtlessly. I named him deliberately. Just like naming Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot or any other mass-murderer. Imbecilic politically-correct stances have no place in public debate. Get a grip. If you go around trying to get others to conform to your wacky morality you’ll just become bitter & twisted…

                  • arkie …
                    16 March 2019 at 2:21 pm

                    How’s it politically correct? Why give the attention to the self-proclaimed fascist?
                    We can discuss all of these topics without making the discussion about the perpetrator directly.
                    You say you’re an opponent of ‘excessive immigration’. Seeing as you love a debate; care to define this?

                    • Dennis Frank …
                      16 March 2019 at 2:37 pm

                      I posted a rationale this morning that answers your second question. Take a look at Tim Watkin’s view on Pundit for a similar stance. To answer your first: assuming everyone ought to conform to the reasoning of a criminologist is pc-driven thinking. Credible public policy that actually works for the common good is usually produced by consensus.

                      Excessive immigration is that which produces toxic cultural conditions, fear and push-back from a politically-significant portion of the electorate (overseas) and overloaded infrastructure (here).

                    • arkie …
                      16 March 2019 at 3:02 pm

                      As you say on Watkin’s post:

                      I’ve been getting flack on the Standard from few leftists for advocating this stance. I made the point that public policy to solve the problem cannot be formulated without comprehension of the problem, which means learning about what makes these people so warped. Aussie websites are featuring Tarrant’s good family background, so we can’t blame that. No drug-usage evident, so can’t blame that.

                      What made this person ‘so warped’ is white supremacy, consumed through anonymous forums, steeped in memes, and it’s our failure that these views can be fostered in our diverse country. We have minimised or ignored victims of racism, islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments when they have spoke up about it; and this needs to change. It will not change if society must reach consensus with those who hold these views. Surely, in this pacific island, the notion of ‘white supremacy’ has no place.

            • Incognito 74.1.1.1.3.2
              16 March 2019 at 1:09 pm

              Understandably, emotions run high today and they will for quite some time. However, having a go at Dennis for trying to get his head around this atrocity in his own way is not helpful IMHO.

              Anyway, the name of the murderer-accused is on the f-ing front-page of Stuff and undoubtedly of other MSM too.

          • greywarshark 74.1.1.1.4
            16 March 2019 at 10:30 am

            Some thoughts.
            The residents in Grafton comment – beautiful family – are a reflection of our society that is more about style than substance. They keep themselves neat and well cared for and that proves they are good people.

            We are in quite an amoral situation at this stage of western human development I think. Coming together to worship and profess to live by good principles and follow religious precepts has largely been dropped.
            I think sport has taken its place as a reason for gathering. Just being in a community doing something physical and obstensibly innocent is more satisfying, and there is a competitive side to it, winners and losers. Religion requires mental, brain work, making at least a show of humility; thinking beyond oneself and about others in the world. But humility is for losers; society respects winners.

            Sport is more individualistic than religion generally is, and the individual competes, feels driven to meet a physical target not a mental or philosophical one. Sports people need to be self-centred, their prowess, their body and mind are directed to specific targets that usually are personal. So there is concentration on body improvement, fitness. The physical aspects of life are important. Secondary is forming a philosophy and understanding of oneself, others and society in general. The maturity that results from learning and thinking about the confusions and difficulties of life is lacking. This would come from respecting others in their efforts to ‘find the meaning of life’, and in understanding how different people cope and react even if their approach is disgraceful.

            The dedicated religious seem to bring out the worst in those without any beliefs of trying to be a good human. The fact that someone under a strong religious belief can chop people’s heads off etc turns the anomic individual against the religion, rather than the perpetrators. And the bad action gives the failing personality the belief that they themselves are being threatened so they feel they can retaliate against anyone who is related to that religion.

            Religion has frequently been connected with attacks on people in the south of the USA.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_Street_Baptist_Church_bombing
            (dynamite killed four girls and further people were injured)

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church
            (Church and religion being used as cover for hate operation, against ‘deviants’ and mostly consisting of one extended family. Not connected
            to the Baptist Church at all.)

            https://www.vox.com/2015/1/9/7520529/history-colorado-bombing
            The long history of attacks against civil rights organizations

            It seems a scapegoating behaviour, and the targets become the focus for feelings of frustration and anger within the attacker who sees them as an outlet who deserve to be punished. So they manage to convince themselves that their foul behaviour is justified.

          • North 74.1.1.1.5
            16 March 2019 at 11:01 am

            My Jesus……has DF found “some very fine people” ?

      • Jenny - How to get there? 74.1.2
        16 March 2019 at 8:50 am

        Let us hope that this terrible attack leads to some serious introspection by those politicians who seek to make political gain by attacking immigrants.

  75. WILD KATIPO 75
    16 March 2019 at 7:20 am

    There are at least 3 posters on this article that are conflating Christianity with far right extremism and implying mass murder is OK’d by that community. Usually targeting fundamentalist Christians.

    This is exactly the same sort of broad brush generalizations leveled at Muslims and the Islamic faith.

    You make yourself out to be every bit as bad as that crowd you wish to demonize.

    • North 75.1
      16 March 2019 at 11:08 am

      In fairness WK significant numbers in the the Christian Right have if not embraced then certainly closed their eyes to white nationalism…….or is that fact to be blithely, even aggressively rationalised out of existence ?

  76. greywarshark 76
    16 March 2019 at 9:14 am

    If the lead guy is Australian, I think that it is a good time move to having visas for Australians and vice versa. It gives us a chance to monitor who is passing through. If it limits the tourism, the studies know that Australians are not big spenders, and many of them are visiting family and not users of accommodation etc. Business people could have the same special visas that I understand are available to Chinese people.

    • WeTheBleeple 76.1
      16 March 2019 at 9:56 am

      It wouldn’t have changed anything if they were not on the radar they were not going to pop up on any system as they enter.

      And we’re still not up to date on the others involved. Christchurch has harbored these types at least three decades I know of. Well embedded in the community there the white power gangs. Bikers, skinheads, many ‘upright’ citizens with associations. We don’t talk about it cos, you know, awkward. You have plenty in NP, toy run by day, n***** bashing by night.

      Institutionalised racism sets the stage. Then the self-entitled ‘I think I’m more than you’ shits find like minds. In society they might encourage but one might hope also temper one another as a group. But the internet channels people into ever distorted circles of extremity. Across a global population even the most deviant of characters might eventually find themselves in an approving group, a hive mind of atrocity.

      I only have experience on Facebook, that place totally divides people up. I remember I was having a nervous breakdown, and ranting a bit, and getting ever darker and darker crap on my feed, and friend requests from types I didn’t want to know…

      I got out of it. But I could see it was like the saying about which wolf you feed wins. Facebook feeds the bad wolf if you happen to bare your teeth.

      I imagine other platforms do the same.

      While obviously not solely responsible, if you are looking for the headquarters of these bastards, it’s social media.

      • Cinny 76.1.1
        16 March 2019 at 10:05 am

        Christchurch has harbored these types at least three decades I know of. Well embedded in the community there the white power gangs. Bikers, skinheads, many ‘upright’ citizens with associations. We don’t talk about it cos, you know, awkward. You have plenty in NP, toy run by day, n***** bashing by night.

        Well said, STRONGLY AGREE, because that is the TRUTH.

        Edit… this bit as well

        While obviously not solely responsible, if you are looking for the headquarters of these bastards, it’s social media.

      • Incognito 76.1.2
        16 March 2019 at 1:29 pm

        While obviously not solely responsible, if you are looking for the headquarters of these bastards, it’s social media.

        That, to me, suggests some kind of structure and (hierarchical) order, which could well be the reason why these atrocities are so hard to prevent. Even with isolated cells, these are not completely isolated. The problem with the so-called ‘lone wolf’ is exactly that, they act alone without an existing support network that can be detected by security agencies. In some ways, they can be compared with rapists or serial killers who act alone and live in their own world of malformed ideas and opinions.

  77. solkta 77
    16 March 2019 at 9:46 am

    Ardern just said that the guy had an “A” gun license and acquired the weapons legally. This shit needs to change and change now.

    • Cinny 77.1
      16 March 2019 at 9:56 am

      She said that gun laws will change. Very proud of how she is reacting and dealing with it all.

      • solkta 77.1.1
        16 March 2019 at 10:02 am

        Yes she is handling the situation well. Very glad it is her and not that last weasel.

        Really angers me how the firearms thing was recently reviewed and the “law abiding gun owner” nonsense was aloud to prevail.

        • Cinny 77.1.1.1
          16 March 2019 at 10:08 am

          Agree, apparently there was a review in 2017 and laws should have been strengthened then but weren’t.

        • WeTheBleeple 77.1.1.2
          16 March 2019 at 10:33 am

          I am so grateful we have someone gracious in charge at this time. Also someone who’ll do more than talk nonsense.

          Named terrorism for what it was.

          Gun laws will change.

          Hero.

    • mauī 77.2
      16 March 2019 at 10:11 am

      To clarify, I think an “A” license is a standard gun license! I always thought you had to have a special license to use a semi-automatic… Some serious questions need to be asked.

      • Cinny 77.2.1
        16 March 2019 at 10:21 am

        Found this Maui

        ” Police Minister Paula Bennett consulted with independent firearms experts, and accepted seven recommendations, but rejected 12.”

        https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/97512128/opportunity-missed-for-nz-to-tighten-gun-control-laws

      • WILD KATIPO 77.2.2
        16 March 2019 at 10:28 am

        The issue is with military grade weapons and that includes semi automatics. One only has to more or less hold ones finger on the trigger of a semi automatic to almost match the firepower of an automatic. Almost….

        I do not believe in the right for the public to bear pistols because of obvious concealment issues. Pistols, automatics and semi automatics should be the preserve of the Police and military only.

        As I said in another post, ‘ if you cannot bag your deer with a well placed shot with a 3.03 or 3.08 then you need to go back to the gun club and practice’ .

        Regards pest control and farming, some allowance has to be made for low caliber.22’s for eradication purposes. The use of scopes and silencers on small game / pests such as rabbits is almost a necessity for professional pest eradication purposes in these circumstances.

        However , military grade weapons are only designed for one thing ; killing human beings. So also are pistols , … ultimately . We have no Grizzly bears in the forests here therefore the justification of protective sidearms is moot in NZ.

        A high caliber hunting single shot rifle is more than adequate for any large game found in NZ.

        The problem in NZ is illegal arms procurement, and not just simply a knee jerk reaction against all firearms and the public’s right to bear them.

        A balance needs to be struck.

        BTW , I’ve never owned a firearm and don’t like them.

        I am a bow hunter, or at least… used to be when younger.

        • solkta 77.2.2.1
          16 March 2019 at 10:31 am

          Yes it is ridiculous that someone can own a pistol just for the purpose of playing a game with it.

        • BM 77.2.2.2
          16 March 2019 at 10:53 am

          Not all semi-autos look like military weapons, a semi-auto is just a weapon that self-loads.

          https://www.guncity.com/firearms/all-firearms/centrefire/semi-auto

          Do you think people should only be allowed bolt actions or lever actions?

          • WILD KATIPO 77.2.2.2.1
            16 March 2019 at 11:13 am

            Well if we go back to the days of black powder Brown Besse’s,… THAT is a military grade weapon. If we go back further to the 14th century hand cannon … THAT is a military grade weapon.

            But we are not stupid. Are we.

            Anything, that produces a rate of fire designed to suppress human beings in the act of warfare , over and above single action fire is by definition a modern military grade weapon.

            They are not necessary for normal civilian use.

            Even the use of single shot bolt action Lee Enfields were more than enough en masse to cause widespread carnage on the battle fields of WW1. Why therefore was the development of Vickers, Brownings and the like developed except for tactical advantage on the battlefield?

            And why therefore , is the need for the use of them in civilian pursuits?

            Yes we have progressed away from the bolt action long ago through technological advances , but it is the rate of fire that is the first consideration of those with ill intentions.

            That, and magazine capacity.

            Again I say … ‘ if you cant bag your deer with a well placed shot with a single shot 3.03 or 3.08 , then you need to go back to the gun club to practice. Especially when many other hundreds of others using the same equipment can.

          • WeTheBleeple 77.2.2.2.2
            16 March 2019 at 11:27 am

            “Do you think people should only be allowed bolt actions or lever actions?”

            Muskets.

      • aj 77.2.3
        16 March 2019 at 1:56 pm

        Yes apparently you need a ‘B’ license to own a semi auto. Which this guy did not have, according to RNZ earlier today

  78. RedLogix 78
    16 March 2019 at 10:21 am

    Just got off a plane after a long and particularly shitty trip, to this ugly, ugly news. At a bit of a loss for words that can add to everything said above.

    The line between good and evil runs through every human heart, and this is the dark side where extremist ideologies drive us. It is what we are all capable of, and we must all guard against.

    Today will be grey and sombre, a time to reflect.

  79. Kay 79
    16 March 2019 at 10:36 am

    I’ve just come back from the Kilbirnie Mosque. Already a steady stream of people arriving to lay flowers and messages, standing around and reflecting. And several openly crying. Me, only silent tears today, I think I’m cried out from yesterday.
    Even more harder that seeing the memorial was seeing a uniformed NZ police officer holding a large semi-automatic- I presume loaded- firearm, like we only see overseas. I understand why at this point, but I’m so scared this is going to become the new normal for us 🙁

    • marty mars 79.1
      16 March 2019 at 10:49 am

      Thank you.

    • WILD KATIPO 79.2
      16 March 2019 at 11:42 am

      [ ” Even more harder that seeing the memorial was seeing a uniformed NZ police officer holding a large semi-automatic- I presume loaded- firearm, like we only see overseas. I understand why at this point, but I’m so scared this is going to become the new normal for us ” ]

      When I was a young fella in the late 1970’s, I remember my Dad saying all this shit (my words ) is going to come to NZ in another 20 or so years , and I also recall him saying ” They all say we are Imperial, – Imperialists”… well his generation had lived through WW2, the Korean war and the Vietnamese war , the Cuban missile crises, and grown up in the Depression years.

      They were a stoic generation yet they were a politicized one. They lived through it all.

      And he was right all along.

      It took awhile but now here it is.

      The shit from overseas is now here.

      And now we squeal and squall like naive little spoilt brats because for far too long we were smug and complacent that it wouldn’t happen way down here in lil ole NZ. She’ll be right mate.

      All those decades of downsizing our military and letting it go to pot , thinking Aussie and America would just automatically pick up the tab and rush to our defense if needs be when we pulled out of ANZUS, … ( well maybe they will,… because we are part of the 5 eye deal ) … kidding ourselves that we are a nation that punches way above our weight on the world stage and all the other grabastic vomitous media drivel we were fed…

      When in reality we are but a small , almost insignificant nation on the bum end of the planet that really ,… if we were to be really , really honest for a change… are merely patronized and humored as some sort of nice, backwaters hillbilly bunch who only escape the dynamics of global incidents because of our sheer isolation from the rest of the populated world.

      This latest is a hideous and tragic reminder that no ,… we don’t escape the problems of the globe just because we live in isolation. Not in the modern , electronically connected world.

      Far from it.

  81. JohnW 81
    16 March 2019 at 12:15 pm

    I declare myself a Muslem in support of the victims and their families, and as a ‘slap in the face’ to those hate groups. I think we all could do that, for a period of time anyway. What do you think?

    • Firepig 81.1
      16 March 2019 at 4:08 pm

      I think if you are going to change your religion, you should show some commitment and make it permanent. Otherwise what are you doing it for?

  82. Paul Campbell 82
    16 March 2019 at 4:07 pm

    It’s worth noting that comparing country’s populations to populations 49 deaths in NZ is proportionally higher than the 911 death toll – it’s even a similar sort of thing, terrorists from a friendly country came and killed a bunch of innocent people – we should be angry – and we should expect our government to do a 911 response sort of effort to stamp out white supremacists and their enablers

    (except maybe we could avoid invading Australia to hunt down their white supremacists, one would hope they will do that themselves)

  83. samuel welsh 83
    19 March 2019 at 1:04 am

    he should be given the death peanility
    justice for all 48 killed

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