Media on New Zealand: "Guns are bad...but the man who scared the shooter away with a gun is a hero!

[Crusader13]

Media on New Zealand: "Guns are bad...but the man who scared the shooter away with a gun is a hero!

Christchurch shooting: man hailed as hero for chasing shooter away from mosque – video | World news | The Guardian

The media and general public seem to be spitting up all sorts of incoherent nonsense over the Christchurch shootings. So far is their delusion that they don't see the sheer irony in two recent media trends.

Immediately following the shootings, it turned into the usual "Guns are bad...nobody should use them, they serve no purpose" echo chamber.

Within a few days a story emerged that the second mosque shooting (which suffered far less fatalities) was interrupted by an attendant at the mosque picking up a gun and scaring away the shooter. The man has since been hailed as a hero by the media and public, even though NZ law has clearly always stated that self defense is not a valid reason to use a gun (yes really).

So which is it? It seems that the rules of law have been applied selectively here. You can't own a gun for self defense...unless you're Muslim or under some sort of severe threat? This needs to be clearly specified before we start taking away guns from innocent citizens.

The grim reality is that shooters like this will always exist. We can't change that. What we can change is their ability to to carry out these atrocities unchallenged.

 

[Xelor]

Re: Media on New Zealand: "Guns are bad...but the man who scared the shooter away with a gun is a he

Media on New Zealand: "Guns are bad...but the man who scared the shooter away with a gun is a hero!

The guy's a hero because he scared away the shooter, not because he did so using a gun.

 

[Stealers Wheel]

Re: Media on New Zealand: "Guns are bad...but the man who scared the shooter away with a gun is a he

So he "picked up a gun", did he? And you say he used the gun to scare away the gunman? Perhaps some missing details need to be examined.

According to the hero, the gun he "picked up" was dropped by the gunman.

The hero said he pointed the gun and pulled the trigger but the gun didn't fire. The gun was out of ammo. I wonder if the gunman knew that when he tossed it.

The gunman returned to his car to get more guns, but then fled because the hero with the empty gun was approaching him.

Details.

 

[Crusader13]

Re: Media on New Zealand: "Guns are bad...but the man who scared the shooter away with a gun is a he

So he "picked up a gun", did he? And you say he used the gun to scare away the gunman? Perhaps some missing details need to be examined.

According to the hero, the gun he "picked up" was dropped by the gunman.

The hero said he pointed the gun and pulled the trigger but the gun didn't fire. The gun was out of ammo. I wonder if the gunman knew that when he tossed it.

The gunman returned to his car to get more guns, but then fled because the hero with the empty gun was approaching him.

Details.

None of that changes anything. The man is being called a hero for pointing a gun at the shooter and telling him to leave. Had he done that without a gun he wouldn't have been called a hero by the media, he'd be called an idiot.

The man didn't know the gun was empty. The attacker couldn't have known 100% either that it was empty (or that the man didn't find spare ammo lying around and loaded it).

The fact is still that the man with the gun tried and easily could have saved the day. There's no way anyone would be saying that if he didn't pick up the gun, because that's the only thing that gives you a fighting chance in a shooting.