A person’s right to defend themself is sacred. It is only through the arbitrary magic of government that we create a set of standards that determine what a person is allowed to do in the moments of frightful violence. In Australia, for example, government arbitration decides whether a person is allowed to carry something to protect themselves. This is not just limited to firearms but includes mace, knives, clubs, or any item that may have the intent to be used for self-defense. The individual is then made dependent on the regional monopoly, a public service that has deemed itself the sole authority when it comes to human rights in all areas—especially the right to self-defense.
Recently, Australia suffered three terrible stabbing events; one tragically led to the death of six innocent people, five women and a man, two of them being unarmed mall guards. The other was against a well-known religious figure, Bishop Mar Mari Emanuel, who preaches for peace in Palestine. Fortunately, he survived the attack. The third was between teenagers and has been relegated as “merely” gang related violence, despite a death.
These attacks will inevitably lead to conversations about the availability of knives. Blaming the material object and discussions of prohibition always linger in the minds of law makers. Because the attackers were male, the narrative has also led to a collective blame and responsibility put upon all men. “Men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of this violence and men, as a group, have to change their behaviour,” said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in a stunning and bravely generic statement after the Bondi murders. The nuance of individualism is lost in government discourse; instead demographics rule, unless it is decided otherwise. And of course further funding into mental health, of which Australia already has a huge sectory dedicated. The Bondi murderer was a person “suffering” such an affliction, so his culpability as a human being will be swayed into a need for professionals and support workers to get paid more. Some will tell you that because of his “condition” he is the real victim, and the dead are symptoms of his illness.
Not only will welfare fascism reign supreme all the more, so too will anti-terror surveillance powers. Secret laws and not so secret ones will materialize with enforcement agencies putting their hands out for more resources and funding. Government has the magical ability of rewarding those who fail with more so that they can continue to fail with more, and so on. It placates many in the unthinking public, and ensures politicians look as though they are proactive while giving the parasite sector more “jobs” at the expense of the population that they tax into poverty and deny the right of self-defense.
The neo-liberal fascism that is the nation state of Australia will do as it does: grow government and remove individual rights all under the guise of security, and in the case of the Bondi murderer, welfare. The heroic police inspector Amy Scott and the legally-not-allowed-to-be-armed civilian men who escorted her into the mall acted as heroes. She did not act as a police officer, because a cop would have waited outside for back up. She happened to be on the scene, and as a heroic individual she stopped the threat, killing the attacker with two well placed shots while the two unarmed mall guards were bleeding to death alongside the disarmed women nearby.
If the murderer used a firearm we know what the Australian government and wider public’s impulse would have been: “We are becoming like America!” Instead, the mass murder was done in a very English manner, with a knife. Though I fear that it will only take another attack of such a nature for the response to be again very English and look at knives as the problem while mental health welfare scrambles for more support. While the welfare-minded will push the mental health angle for more support. The conversation about an individual’s right to self-defense is lost in the many claws reaching for more funding.
A few years ago at a shopping center in South Australia a man known to the police, and who had recently been released from jail, brutally beat a woman to death. He remained by her body until police arrived. He had only recently walked into the local police station informing them that he wanted to return to jail. He had been locked up for violent actions. So, one evening he murdered a mother. He got everything he wanted; an innocent woman was a prop to his ambition and desires. The state now protects him from her family and the wider community. He lives with care, food, services, and entertainment away from a wider public that would have prevented him from doing what he did. Unfortunately, they are not allowed to protect themselves, so the very public service that enables, supports, and then guards such men keeps them locked up and safe from those who would not tolerate their violence.
Such events will be viewed through the eyes of one’s own philosophical, ideological. and personal bias. Unfortunately, people suffered. The might of the most unimaginitive and the mob of the frightened will likely sway policy and decisions into further empowering the state and creating a dependency of the individuals it rules over. Early online meme authorities reported the Bondi killer as being Islamic or even Jewish. Surely an immigrant! When it turned out that the 40-year old incel had more in common with them than any oriental Jew or Muslim other-worlder, they moved on to generate more memes for future incel killers to consume.
Even if he was, it is still women who are ultimately responsible for these incidents.
Virtually all mass killers have a history of sexual rejection by women.
— RadicalCulturalPsychologist (@CulturalRadical) April 15, 2024
The stabbing attack on the Christian bishop by the 15-year old attacker has been “deemed” a terrorist attack. That means by using that word, the laws surrounding the nature of the event change, and the intention of the (underage) attacker and the profile of the intended victim invokes a different process. Whereas, should the murderer at the Bondi shopping center have survived, it is likely that he would be put on a generous federal government mental health policy rather than face “punishment.” The victims they remain dead regardless of how professionals in government determine the murderer’s validity of intention.
What motivated the 15-year old to attack a high profile bishop is not known at this time. His motivation is crucial to sway the state’s response. To some he is a kid, a boy, a child even. To ohers he is a “fighting age male.” If he was suffering mental defects, then it is likely the state would see him as being a child, mentally unable to suffer any punishment. Put him on a disability pension! If he committed his attack with political or extreme religious convictions, then he is a fighting age male, a man basically. A threat! Yet to any sane observer, mental coherence and rationale thought is absent from all of the above scenarios. Most people who do violent and horrible things do so for personal and vile reasons. The meandering need to define one as sane or not is a luxury that no victims are afforded. It is instead one that profits experts and professionals.
The other, less reported stabbing occurred in Sydney; two brothers were stabbed, one of them dying. Four male teenagers have been charged. This is being treated as a criminal matter and because of the age of the killers and lack of profile of the victims, it is not a terrorist attack. Instead it’s just a killing, less important to anyone outside of the family or community. The teenagers who were involved in the stabbing and murder will go to the local child court. In fact, this murder is barely noticed because it was only one dead and because the intended target is not a public figure but a regular human being.
The question is inevitably asked: what “radicalized” the killers and would-be killer?
Dungeons and Dragons, heavy metal music, rap, comic books, pornography, violent video games, memes? At the very least they did not go ten pin bowling before hand. The radicalization narrative is one that always seeks prohibition and censorship. Ultimately, what radicalizes one to believe that violence and killing are acceptable means to accomplish one’s ambitions is far closer to the accepted home for most people. Bland conversation with wine in hand may meander in discussion that nearly 100,000 innocent people may be killed in Gaza by August, and in that same month we will have people celebrating the anniversary of the dropping of atom bombs on cities. Those beliefs are not radical. Radicalism is to oppose, reject, and feel disgust at the entity that would do such a thing. Any reasoning that embraces such an act should be understood to be repulsive. Acts of killing on scale, when done under the guise of policy, is normal and healthy as far as civilized discourse goes.
In the end, the public will likely suffer further disarmament. Taxpayers will be handed a bill for it all and will still walk near individuals who use reckless violence. And all regular people will be allowed to do is call the police. This issue is an individual and a community one. Murder is already illegal. Murder is also understood by most social constructs as being anti-social and unwelcome. It takes government to legalize and define murder in such a manner that it becomes a policy point or a means to achieve an aim. When a man runs through a shopping mall with a knife, he is certainly deranged, but through his violence he is acting upon his own policies of arbitration, accomplishing whatever he feels he needs to. For the rest of us, he is dangerous and needs to be stopped and deterred from doing that. Disarming his potential victims is not how this is accomplished. Destroying such threats the moment they emerge is the duty of every capable individual. That is radical. Standing by and letting it happen until those allowed to be armed arrive…apparently that is the normal thing to do.
