Australia: land of kangroos, people that need to lighten up

Post Reply New Topic

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/olympics-fourth-place-medal/australian-olympic-swimmers-criticized-facebook-gun-photo-154500136.html

Two members of the Australian Olympic swim team are under fire for posing with three guns and posting the photo on Facebook.

Swimming Australia demanded Kenrick Monk take down the picture of him and Nick D'Arcy in a California gun shop. He complied.

In the picture, Monk held pump action shotguns that resemble those used in the Port Arthur massacre of 1996, an incident which still stands as one of Australia's deadliest shootings. D'Arcy held a semi-automatic pistol.

The Sydney Daily Telegraph was among the Aussie newspapers to question the decision of the young men. On its Twitter account, the newspaper asked, "Are you offended by this photograph of Nick D'Arcy and Kenrick Monk in a US gun shop?"

The two young men need no introduction to stupidity. D'Arcy was involved in a brawl on the night the 2008 Australian Olympic team was announced and broke the jaw, nose, eye socket and cheekbone of a teammate. He was kicked off the team but avoided jail for the incident.

The lawyer of the man he punched was surprisingly surprised at D'Arcy's current brush with infamy. "I can't believe it," Sam Macedone told The Age. "Despite all the criticism, he still does things that are stupid."

Monk broke his elbow last September and blamed it on a hit-and-run driver. Four days after filing a police report, he confessed that he had actually fallen off his skateboard. Police didn't charge Monk, calling him a "wannabe B-grade celebrity athlete." (Police in Australia sound sort of awesome.)

"It was all just meant to be a bit of fun, the photos were just a bit of fun," D'Arcy told reporters upon his return to Australia on Friday. "If anyone's been offended I deeply apologize. It was never the intent, it was never supposed to be offensive."

There are reports that the Australian Olympic Committee could keep both swimmers off the team for the "foolish" action that was "clearly inappropriate for members of the 2012 Australian Olympic team."

I would agree that people do seem to be overreacting to this photo (although some of the other stuff they've done, as mentioned in the article, sound genuinely stupid). I guess swimming australia is just trying to avoid any hint of controversy, and I doubt they will actually kick them off the team for this photo alone.

Something to keep in mind is that Australia has very different cultural ideas to America about guns. Guns are practically impossible to obtain in Australia. There are hunters in Australia, but they are strictly regulated, restricted to hunting style-rifles, and only really found in more rural areas and are a very very small minority of the population. I've never even seen a gun in this country, apart from pistols owned by police (I've never even seen one of those removed from their holster). People in Australia are much less used to guns and much less comfortable around them. Ideas such as the right to own a gun or the need to own a gun for self defence are just not part of Australian culture. I think this is why some Australians react so negatively way to photos like this one.

Times change. When I was a kid, guns were a lot more common. I'd seen other kids walking along the river carrying air rifles and 22s. I found a high powered rifle in the trunk of a car at a dump back in 84. I was only a kid, so I handed it into the cops.

But times changed. The populace was disarmed by the law and played by the media. I remember a couple of years back watching a tv compare interview an American pastor who advocated guns. The interviewer tried to make out he was some kind of nut, but the pastor was very level headed. Pastor pointed out the difference between major gun cultures (plural) in America, and how he advocated responsible gun ownership; not the gangsta style.

The interviewer was losing ground, so he decided to end the segment with a poll to find out what Australians thought about gun ownership. His unbiased question? After playing up the crime angle, he asked, "Do you think Australia should have an American style gun culture"

Guns aren't evil, but I have to admit, we don't have the same level of responsibility in our cultures any more. I mean, someone in the outback might own firearms to kill roos or ferals. Keeps his firearms safe. He uses them as a tool.

Wouldn't want firearms to make their way into the cities though.

People want events like the Holocaust and 9/11 to be taken seriously, and then claim that others are overreacting when they see something that reminds them of their own tragedy?

As Donii said, in Australia gun laws are extremely well regulated.

Those who live in rural areas and use guns for practical purposes and were raised with gun sense and safety are not, and have never been the problem.

The problem is when we end up with weapons available in cities where there is a high population density and with people who don't know what they are doing with them, or by those who have them or are using them for the wrong reasons.

Guns are not socially acceptable in Australia, especially posing with them like that considering the type they are, anyone here with half a brain knows that.

Error: Martin Bryant used a [civilian] AR-15 and SLR (high capacity semi-automatic rifles); if he was using a low capacity manual repeater, such as the shotguns shown, I'm betting more people would have lived as the initial moments of shock are where most of the casualties come from in these things.

Doesn't matter though, as it's the person who did this, not the objects; objects can make it easier, of course, but the human mind can come up with ways to circumvent a lack of objects (such as lighting a town on fire, like what happened not long ago).

Swimming Australia haven't kicked them off the team. but what they have done is barred them from attending the closing ceremony. Meaning that they will be sent home early regardless of whether they win a medal or not.

If gun culture becomes normalised, it might be very difficult to "un-normalise" it. As with so many cultural issues, the U.S. is the brave canary down the mineshaft, and it has provided a clear signal to the rest of us that normalising gun culture is a bad idea.

I'll bet the store owner allowed that picture out of political motivation. Australian gun laws and confiscation schemes are frequently analyzed by both sides of the issue as a piece of a bigger strategy for legislative and legal battles. Right now it's a particularly big issue here in part because of Rebecca Peters' involvement in the UN 2012 arms trade treaty. There is a grassroots movement to get more people to get more people interested in shooting, and that goes double for women, Europeans, and particularly people from commonwealth countries. I bet the gun store owner wanted them to tweet a photo like that.