To my mind McKee is doing an excellent job. The police are the ones that gave Tarrant the licence and they need to be held to account, not the innocent law abiding registered gun owners.
In the history of this country Aramoana comes to mind as the only other shooting where multiple people unknown to the perpetrator were killed and there was no uproar by the media and people like Edwards back then.
I believe the edict to disarm comes from on high. An unarmed and compliant population is much easier to control. A motor vehicle in the hands of a deranged person is a very effective weapon. Do we put restrictions on them?
I agree wholeheartedly with what you have written. I am not a gun owner but grew up with guns and learnt to respect them on my parents farm. Dad was a great shot and his extended family all shot clays and duck season was eagerly anticipated. And it is essential to have a firearm capable of putting down injured farm animals as well as keeping rabbits and possums in check.
Nicole McKee is a knowledgeable woman regarding firearms usage, she is taking a sensible approach and consultation to making good gun legislation.
There is a concerted effort of ignorant whining and shocking attempts at character assassination of McKee which I think is disgraceful. It is not warranted or deserved.
Great piece. I've been watching all the attacks on McKee, including from Cahill (whom I abhor from his whiney voice up), but because busy, not quite grasping the issues and what was going on.
Now I know the truth. She's a good woman. ACT is proving to be the principled party in this government; plus all the MPs are admirably safe hands so far.
Nicole is great in the job. In every other field the public generally recognise that an MP who understands their subject matter is far more effective than an activist with an agenda playing MP. With firearms they want the activist, someone who agrees with their pre-conceived agenda. The problem for the Jack Tame types is they are all woke inner city people who sincerely believe the population can be divided neatly into two classes, "good people" such as themselves, and the rest. A dirty subsect of "the rest" is firearms owners, who are perceived to be somewhere between Rambo and Clyde Barrow in their attitudes. It appears to them that anyone who wants a firearm can only do so because of their devout desire to shoot up a Mosque, or to compensate for some aspect of their anatomy that is below par. The possibility that firearms are an essential part of daily life (and rural economy) appears lost on them.
For those of us in rural NZ the situation is somewhat different. I use firearms on the farm to control pests, which otherwise run rampant and multiply exponentially. You Rachel may not like the MSSA style rifles but in the year following the crushing of my E cat rifle in 2019 I lost over 30,000 tree seedlings to feral deer and goats, at a cost of over $100,000 plus lost opportunity as the trees did not establish. On top of that my bush reserves got hammered, and the 100ha or so of land that I was not grazing cattle on and allowing the native trees to regenerate got hammered, so I let the cattle back in. Why would I try to allow native forest to grow when the Govt would not let me control the pests properly? My small example can be multiplied across the entire country's farms and DOC estate and the ecological damage done by the ban is horrendous. I do not know any shooter able to knock down 30 goats with a 10 shot bolt action rifle, so the pests are free to live another day, and destroy our biodiversity at will. Our abilty to maintain our forests and conservation estate has been severely curtailed, and we will be up for billions of dollars worth of 'catch up' pest control in future. Even worse is the fact that the exponentially increasing feral pest population is also becoming gun shy as the cullers who previously had the ability to make a decent dent in pest numbers are now only able to knock over 1 or 2 before the others are scared off, teaching the survivors to fear firearms.
The firearms debate in NZ is farcical, scared fools with the complete conviction that a firearm is 'inherently evil' and likely to jump out of the safe and hunt you down unaided on one side, and people with actual experience and the ability to make rational judgements on the other. Unfortunately the scared people are in the majority, and the msm and some political parties play on their fears with skill.
Absolutely correct. Well written, ever thought of a career in Jounalism.
The police were 100 percent at Fault for The Tarrant Debarcle. There is no way under the law at the time he should have ever been able to get a license.
We the Firearms owners now suffer from a knee jerk reaction by a Marxist PM.
I believe it has also destroyed firearms sales for the hunting and fishing specialist shops having talked to a few which most of them can ill afford in these times.
The Media are now so one sided that I think I would not be alone in saying when I turned the TV off a number of years ago and stopped reading the Herald that they are no longer the one source of truth the last Govt made them out to be. In general they make me cringe when I read articles like Bryces one you refer to. You are correct, it was poorly researched and was not balanced. he should stick to his knitting.
McKee seems to be like you say ,knowledgeable on the subject that she represents, if only we had more politicians like that.
To my mind McKee is doing an excellent job. The police are the ones that gave Tarrant the licence and they need to be held to account, not the innocent law abiding registered gun owners.
In the history of this country Aramoana comes to mind as the only other shooting where multiple people unknown to the perpetrator were killed and there was no uproar by the media and people like Edwards back then.
I believe the edict to disarm comes from on high. An unarmed and compliant population is much easier to control. A motor vehicle in the hands of a deranged person is a very effective weapon. Do we put restrictions on them?
I agree wholeheartedly with what you have written. I am not a gun owner but grew up with guns and learnt to respect them on my parents farm. Dad was a great shot and his extended family all shot clays and duck season was eagerly anticipated. And it is essential to have a firearm capable of putting down injured farm animals as well as keeping rabbits and possums in check.
Nicole McKee is a knowledgeable woman regarding firearms usage, she is taking a sensible approach and consultation to making good gun legislation.
There is a concerted effort of ignorant whining and shocking attempts at character assassination of McKee which I think is disgraceful. It is not warranted or deserved.
Excellent piece Rachel. There’s some sort of derangement at work thinking McKee is an operative for Big 🔫
Great piece. I've been watching all the attacks on McKee, including from Cahill (whom I abhor from his whiney voice up), but because busy, not quite grasping the issues and what was going on.
Now I know the truth. She's a good woman. ACT is proving to be the principled party in this government; plus all the MPs are admirably safe hands so far.
Thanks for another perspective, Rachel.
From hearing her speak I am convinced McKee is the best person in the country to do this job- knowledgeable, experienced, ethical and brave
Nicole is great in the job. In every other field the public generally recognise that an MP who understands their subject matter is far more effective than an activist with an agenda playing MP. With firearms they want the activist, someone who agrees with their pre-conceived agenda. The problem for the Jack Tame types is they are all woke inner city people who sincerely believe the population can be divided neatly into two classes, "good people" such as themselves, and the rest. A dirty subsect of "the rest" is firearms owners, who are perceived to be somewhere between Rambo and Clyde Barrow in their attitudes. It appears to them that anyone who wants a firearm can only do so because of their devout desire to shoot up a Mosque, or to compensate for some aspect of their anatomy that is below par. The possibility that firearms are an essential part of daily life (and rural economy) appears lost on them.
For those of us in rural NZ the situation is somewhat different. I use firearms on the farm to control pests, which otherwise run rampant and multiply exponentially. You Rachel may not like the MSSA style rifles but in the year following the crushing of my E cat rifle in 2019 I lost over 30,000 tree seedlings to feral deer and goats, at a cost of over $100,000 plus lost opportunity as the trees did not establish. On top of that my bush reserves got hammered, and the 100ha or so of land that I was not grazing cattle on and allowing the native trees to regenerate got hammered, so I let the cattle back in. Why would I try to allow native forest to grow when the Govt would not let me control the pests properly? My small example can be multiplied across the entire country's farms and DOC estate and the ecological damage done by the ban is horrendous. I do not know any shooter able to knock down 30 goats with a 10 shot bolt action rifle, so the pests are free to live another day, and destroy our biodiversity at will. Our abilty to maintain our forests and conservation estate has been severely curtailed, and we will be up for billions of dollars worth of 'catch up' pest control in future. Even worse is the fact that the exponentially increasing feral pest population is also becoming gun shy as the cullers who previously had the ability to make a decent dent in pest numbers are now only able to knock over 1 or 2 before the others are scared off, teaching the survivors to fear firearms.
The firearms debate in NZ is farcical, scared fools with the complete conviction that a firearm is 'inherently evil' and likely to jump out of the safe and hunt you down unaided on one side, and people with actual experience and the ability to make rational judgements on the other. Unfortunately the scared people are in the majority, and the msm and some political parties play on their fears with skill.
Absolutely correct. Well written, ever thought of a career in Jounalism.
The police were 100 percent at Fault for The Tarrant Debarcle. There is no way under the law at the time he should have ever been able to get a license.
We the Firearms owners now suffer from a knee jerk reaction by a Marxist PM.
I believe it has also destroyed firearms sales for the hunting and fishing specialist shops having talked to a few which most of them can ill afford in these times.
The Media are now so one sided that I think I would not be alone in saying when I turned the TV off a number of years ago and stopped reading the Herald that they are no longer the one source of truth the last Govt made them out to be. In general they make me cringe when I read articles like Bryces one you refer to. You are correct, it was poorly researched and was not balanced. he should stick to his knitting.
McKee seems to be like you say ,knowledgeable on the subject that she represents, if only we had more politicians like that.
I am a journalist. But no longer in the msm. Thank God.
Appreciate your thoughts.