In the immediate aftermath of a tragic event it’s difficult to find clarity of facts and thoughts through a miasma of lies, unknowns and emotions. The impulse to collectivise, derive explanation from demographic classification is both primal and learned. Just as the impulse to find simple answers. A father and son, acted as individuals with deranged rationalisation and murdered innocent and unarmed people at Bondi, Sydney this weekend. At this time, fifteen people are dead.
Despite the propaganda pushed by mostly American media and content creators, Australians still have access to legal firearms. There are more firearms in the hands of licensed gun owners than before the gun buy back scheme, a reactionary policy to the Port Arthur massacre. The Bondi murderers used legally owned firearms. We can see one of the killers operate a bolt action rifle as he does harm. For many, it’s a simple solution. Make guns illegal. Like drugs and murder itself, the legality of an act or item does little to deter those who would use or do vile things. Prohibition is the inclination for governments to impose, and a simple solution for a population of dependent people. As a reaction, Australian politicians have already promised more gun control laws.
From the Bondi killings, we have numerous angles and views recorded on mobile devices, giving us a voyeurs keyhole from which we can speculate and derive perspective. It’s true, if some there were armed, they could have shot back and it would be over. Unfortunately in modern Australia, only the government, some private security and by definition criminals carry in public. In the moments before unarmed Ahmed el Ahmed tackled and disarmed one of the killers, we see one of what is alleged to be up to four armed police officers hiding, cowering and not responding to the killing. As well as a police vehicle drive past, not stopping to engage. Ahmed, once he disarms the murderer is unable to kill him. He has no idea how to use a firearm. He is after all a common Australian. Guns now are an abstract for video games, movies and the government or in this case criminals to have. Skill at arms, or basic firearm fundamentals are for a past Australia, the age of the Digger and Outback wrangler, a reputation modern Aussies benefit from, while having little in common with.
Only the police should have guns, will be the cry. And despite having armed police visibly present, twenty minutes passed before the killers were stopped. Not too long ago, in gun touting Texas, the Uvalde police stood by for over an hour while a killer went on a murderous rampage against children in a school. The parents prevented by those same police from saving lives, their own children’s. Instead the government agents stood by, and did little other than buffer parent from child. Innocent people died because of such coerced dependency. Inside of Australia, dependency in all areas, has become cultural.
Bondi not too long ago was the scene of a mass stabbing. The entitled arrogance of a man who killed numerous people, his target women. It took a female officer, acting on her own inclinations and instincts as a protector to stop him. The security in the mall, where the murdering occurred were unarmed. They did little to deter the murderer as he walked through, killing and wounding the innocent. In his mind he was steeled by a deranged self righteousness. When, there is numerous victims, it’s called terrorism. Otherwise, in other contexts it’s a diagnosis of mental health. Whether narcissism, ideology, religion or whatever steers these individuals, their mental health seems to be at the whims of those who determine through profession or agenda their categorisation and thus criminality. The father and son from the weekend are terrorists, mental health status no longer applies now that it’s deemed a political act.
In China, a police state where firearms are hard for law abiding people to possess, meat cleavers are the weapon of choice among deranged individuals. In 2010 several incidents saw attacks with cleavers mostly directed against children. In one attack seven children and two adults were murdered by a man in a preschool. Soon after another man stabbed eight children in Fujian province. Later in the year, an elderly woman and young child were cleaved to death by a man near a school. In 2014, a man severely injured eight children as they played near a school in Hubei province. In March of that year, at Kunming Railway Station, eight separatists stabbed thirty five people to death and injured one hundred and forty three others. In 2019, a man killed eight children at a school with a meat clever. The motivation of these men all spiteful and arrogantly entitled, whether determined as mentally unwell, politically motivated or otherwise. They targeted the most vulnerable, where no one was likely there to stop them during their twisted attacks. The putrid mindset of such killers is self serving, regardless of the tools they use to do harm.
Prohibition will reign in conjunction with censorship on information, imagery and communications. The authority is absolute and so long as there remains an existential threat, whether an object, ideology or pariah nation then the authority needs more power, the threat ever more apparent. It’s unlikely the cleaver attacks in China occurred because of social media posts, and just as video games, Marilyn Manson or ten pin bowling did not inspire the 1999 Columbine murderers, blame will always be sought regardless.
For those who are nativist and anti-migration, the imagery of a father and son, brown skinned, Muslim and from Pakistan is confirmation that all of them are alien invaders, A danger to a pure, mostly white, homogenised nation. Whether we delve back to the skin colour of Martin Bryant, not to mention the men responsible for two separate mass killing events in Australia during 1987. The Hoddle Street massacre saw seven killed and nineteen wounded by Julian Knight, a home grown man. Or, the Queen Street massacre later that year when Frank Vitkovic killed eight and injured five in his rampage. Across the Tasman in New Zealand, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, an Australian born supremacist killed fifty-one people and injured forty in a Mosque during his 2019 frenzy. Not to mention famous child killer, Bevan Spencer von Einem who recently died while under the protection of the State in prison who was also born on the soil where he took the life of the innocent. Norwegian neo-Nazi, Aneers Behring Breivik murdered seventy-seven people in 2011, many of them teenagers.
It would be dangerous and disingenuous to assume race or religion is the reason for killers to act as they do. The malicious act to take life based on a set of values or perverse need, transcends race or religion. Overseas, while in uniform, such killers may as well be awarded a medal for similar conduct, under certain circumstances and could even write a best selling book, to have a movie made based on such bloody exploits. Context, even if the victims are unarmed civilians can be conjured. There will be those in equally deplorable circles who will see these two killers as heroes because of who, or why they killed. This past August celebrated the eightieth anniversary of the droppings of the atomic bombs on Japanese cities, there was no shortage of commentary celebrating in the mass murder of innocent people, including children who were not even born when the war started.
When we see through smart phones, on local soil the killings of the familiar, those like us. It’s unacceptable, an intrusion. Reprehensible. When the killings are done over there, in the distant frontiers relegated to policy and imperial ambition, the dead are meaningless, statistics to dismiss. Such is the privilege of perspective. The innocent dead are not props for the stage of misery, yet many minds think otherwise.
The intended victims of the father and son killers at Bondi, were Jewish people. It is assumed the attacks were motivated as punishment for Israeli policies in Gaza and elsewhere. The innocent civilians in Australia, seemingly fair game to the killers who through their vile logic see them as representatives of the State of Israel. Some have argued it’s anti-semetic, while others are steering it as anti-Zionist or anti-Israel. Regardless the murder of innocent people is horrible and unjust, despite the rationales of murderers. If it’s the dropping of bombs on a city full of sleeping families, the mass starvation of millions including children, or the sniping of beach goers because they may have a passport to Israel, all should be seen as repulsive.
Anti-migrant voices, anti-gun advocates, anti-Muslims, even atheists will look at the event and use it as a conclusion of confirmation. Then one can delve into the conspiracies, every mass murder event finds those making claims of crisis actors or it’s a manipulative act to steer public opinion and justify more laws. It takes very little for government to push more laws. Crisis never goes to waste. The lack of critical thinking is a growing concern, especially among the terminally online. Some of which assume every event is staged and fake, concocted for them in an attempt to manipulate. Anecdotally, I have had people who are convinced AI animal slop videos, or Mr Beast content are all credible and legit, while to them murder is staged.
Some critics of Israel, have also speculated this event may be a Mossad operation. The trouble with entities such as Mossad, the CIA or even ASIO is there is no reason to ever trust them. Their histories are marred in lies, deception and violence and even glaring incompetence. In turn, the distrust is reasoned, due to increased criticism of the Israeli government for its genocide in Palestine, there is a need to manipulate and re-direct opinion by staging anti-Jewish violence. The Pulse Nightclub massacre was committed by a man who was motivated by his revulsion at US foreign policy, as was the terror attacks of September, 2001. Individuals can and will do horrible things as reaction to horrible things. The entire war on terror, which killed millions and ruined millions more lives was itself a self righteous reaction to a reaction of violent policies. The cycle of violence and reactions is ongoing, whether conducted by criminals, terrorists, governments or individuals. Many media outlets already tend to omit details about the genocide, or praise Israeli operations in Palestine, it’s unlikely there is a need to concoct a murder conspiracy such as this.
For those who do draw a collectivist reasoning in the recent Bondi mass murder, I wish to quote some feminists, “Not all men, but some how always a man.” And, while this is often dismissed outside the female dominated spectrum, because most people in general understand it to be a slur to assume all men as violent predators. The above mentioned are all males. So, using the same set of demographic profiling, collectivist reasoning, the feminist framing is as, if not more valid. As for prohibitions, I have also heard it said, “men rape with a penis so therefore it’s a weapon that should be removed.“ Again, we understand the appendage is not the problem. The mind who wields it is.
Politicians and the government will usually react the same way, granting itself more power. Even though we can see agents from the government cower and fail to protect. To outsource not just rights, but our entire everything to this monopoly, because it satisfies responsibility and obligation, despite failing has become a common belief. Dependency, ideology and collectivism allows for us to find simple solutions, to kick the can down the road for the next generation to deal with. Unfortunately as attention spans shorten, the rugged individual is bred out, government swells and timidity thrives, dependency will surge. And, every so often deranged and vile humans will, despite the laws, censorship, prohibitions, surveillance, do terrible things. If you see the world in collectives, can’t see individuals as unique and distinct, then that’s on you. If you think every solution requires coercion and collective punishment, censorship and prohibition, sadly you may be in a majority, the mob. That doesn’t make it a better or safer world.
