A man with a knife in Sydney

‘Six people are dead after a stabbing attack at the busy shopping centre in Sydney.

Eight others who were also injured, including a nine-month-old baby, are still in hospital.

Some of the people injured are in critical condition.’

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-14/several-killed-in-mass-stabbing-at-westfield-bondi-junction/103705354

That’s what you get when a nutter goes berserk with a knife.

Mass killings are very rare in Australia, and they leave all of us shaken, yet as awful as yesterday’s senseless slaughter is, imagine how much worse it could have been. Imagine how many people that man could have murdered if he’d had a gun, especially one of those automatic machine gun type guns.

I don’t give former Prime Minister John Howard credit for much, but I will be eternally grateful for his decision to ban guns after the Port Arthur massacre. That decision continues to saves lives to this day because there will always be nutters, in any society. Restricting their access to weapons of mass destruction – and yes, that is precisely what an AR-15 is – reduces the number of people they can kill and maim and terrorize.

I know the rhetoric: ‘guns don’t kill, people do’. And it’s true, but it’s also a great big LIE. Yes, nutters will always find a way to vent their hatred, but it takes a lot of effort to kill people with a knife or a machete. So the number of people killed will always be less than if the same nutter sprayed a crowd with bullets.

Freedom means having the right to live.
Not kill.

Meeks