Richard Mulcahy comes for your pipe and bong

Funny how if you can find it on google, you are automatically an authority in the chosen subject

I’ll be back, gotta do some stuff now…but stick around, this is getting good.

Deadmandrinking said :

Apart from the other guy kicking your arse, no, you don’t have much to worry about. I’d rather that though than someone pulling a gun in the heat of a fight. Texas has concealed carry as well as some very nonrestrictive laws overall. Look at the crime rates in Houston and Dallas.

I’d rather not have someone kick my arse thank you very much.

Yes, I accept that in my world, a person might go crazy and shoot me in the face. However, criminologist Gary Kleck’s research shows that the incidents where their guns averted a threat vastly outnumber those who report being the victim of a firearm-related crime.

Kleck G. Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America (1991). New York, NY, Aldine De Gruyter, pp.42-43 and 170-171

Kleck is a famous critic of John Lott’s book ‘more guns, less crime’ so he’s not a propaghandist.

Furthermore, if you want Government statistics, The United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, found that “A fifth of the victims defending themselves with a firearm suffered an injury, compared to almost half of those who defended themselves with weapons other than a firearm or who had no weapon.”

U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Guns and Crime: Handgun Victimization, Firearm Self-Defense, and Firearm Theft, April 1994, NCJ-147003

And what about the random mass-killings? They happen quite frequently in the US. We haven’t had one since Port Arthur (Only one guy got killed in the Melbourne CBD before you mention that).

Yes but at least the Virginia Tech students are safe from all of that. They ban firearms on campus……..OH WAIT!

What if the people at Port Arthur had guns? How many people would have died? What if the students at VT had guns? Would they have stopped crazy boy?

I don’t run around yelling yahoo and shooting six shooters in the air. I’ve never touched a gun let alone fired one. However the reality backs up the old adage that ‘an armed society is a polite society’.

As italian philosophere Cesare said it best “”laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

Statistics aside, it’s a fundamental right and an important protection against tyranny (ahh yes, time to make myself sound crazy, this should be fun).

Apart from the other guy kicking your arse, no, you don’t have much to worry about. I’d rather that though than someone pulling a gun in the heat of a fight. Texas has concealed carry as well as some very nonrestrictive laws overall. Look at the crime rates in Houston and Dallas.

And what about the random mass-killings? They happen quite frequently in the US. We haven’t had one since Port Arthur (Only one guy got killed in the Melbourne CBD before you mention that).

Deadmandrinking said :

LA and NY have massive, massive urban areas that are filled with poor people all grouped together.

Maine and New Hampshire have about 2.5 million people between them, spread out over two states in smaller urban areas.

Portland, Maine, is the largest city in the state and has just 400,000 people in all. Canberra’s general area including Queanbeyan is close to that number too. Portland averages around 2-3 murders a year, so does the Canberra/Q-town area – so Maine is pretty safe, all things considered.

But…why is Canberra safe then? We’re not strapping, and don’t say it’s just because we’re less violent, our assault rate is almost 3 times theirs. (I’m also quoting from 4 year old statistics, so if you have more recent, that’d be good – but still, Canberra didn’t have guns then, Portland did.) Could it possibly be because not every man and his dog is armed, it’s a lot harder to kill someone?

The above would have been my answer as well. You mistake my intent. I was pointing out the lack of rigour in your previous explanation, not make a case against gun control.

In one hand you have stated that Portland is similar to Canberra, that they have around 2-3 murders a year, and that Canberra has 3 times the assault rate.

In the other hand you have then asked why Canberra is as safe as Portland if they have very ‘liberal’ gun laws and we don’t.

I put it to you that you have just made the case against gun control laws. Your scenario, merely paints a picture that gun laws (whether to allow or disallow) are not a factor. This position is backed up by much of the ‘neutral’ research material actually.

If the crux of your argument was the assault statistic. Could it possibly be because not every man and his dog is armed, it’s a lot easier to assault someone without having to worry about the consequences?

😉

LA and NY have massive, massive urban areas that are filled with poor people all grouped together.

Maine and New Hampshire have about 2.5 million people between them, spread out over two states in smaller urban areas.

Portland, Maine, is the largest city in the state and has just 400,000 people in all. Canberra’s general area including Queanbeyan is close to that number too. Portland averages around 2-3 murders a year, so does the Canberra/Q-town area – so Maine is pretty safe, all things considered.

But…why is Canberra safe then? We’re not strapping, and don’t say it’s just because we’re less violent, our assault rate is almost 3 times theirs. (I’m also quoting from 4 year old statistics, so if you have more recent, that’d be good – but still, Canberra didn’t have guns then, Portland did.) Could it possibly be because not every man and his dog is armed, it’s a lot harder to kill someone?

Deadmandrinking said :

“The reasons these places, and the US, might not show up the same statistics-wise in those areas is because these statistics are usually collected from people reporting crimes.
victims here more often come from backgrounds where it is advantageous to report crime, as they have insurance, medical care and a better trust in the police and justice system. But if you lived in the poorer areas of say, Cape-Town, Rio, Port Moresby, St Louis or Los Angeles, you wouldn’t have that same faith in cops and you would more likely not have insurance – so there’d really not be much point.”

Hence: We have higher stats on certain types of crime because more people report them.

Cape-Town, Rio, and Port Moresby aren’t in the discussed countries and that’s a whole other kettle of socio-economic fish. So let’s extract LA. Why do plaes like LA and NY (places with the alleged reporting problems and with strict gun laws) have higher crime rates than places like New Hampshire and Maine (where you can open carry)?

Yours is not a definitive statement because it is internally inconsistent. It needs work. On the flip side, my statement is not proof that gun control doesn’t work either. It also needs work.

Oh…I agree Thumper. In terms of relative danger…syringes are the worst still.

Deadmandrinking said :

Can you explain to me what purpose someone would have for a pistol or a semi-automatic that didn’t involve killing or maiming someone and couldn’t be done with a rifle?

I was going to say brandishing but you can do that with a rifle. Would be more bulky though.

I think your question is prefaced on the assumption that I think killing or maiming someone is an illegitimate act. I would submit to you that that isn’t always the case, as tragic as it always is.

Thank you for clarifying your previous post. I find people that rely on faulty statistics to be foolish. The case against gun control is so uber sexy, the NRA only end up shooting themselves in the foot (boom tish) by playing silly buggers.

Oh I thought of another option for the above. Sport pistol shooting. We have that already though so I don’t think that’s what you were getting at.

jakez said :

Deamandrinking: I can go out and find a gun control ‘nut’ making a complete fool of themselves. That’s not a rebuttal to gun control, that would merely be a rebuttal to the nut.

The NRA are rubbish. Gun Owners of America and Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership are real organisations.

The first half of your post also has no structure. What are you trying to say?

In response to the NRA’s claims that Australia and Britain’s crime tops the U.S….

“The reasons these places, and the US, might not show up the same statistics-wise in those areas is because these statistics are usually collected from people reporting crimes.
victims here more often come from backgrounds where it is advantageous to report crime, as they have insurance, medical care and a better trust in the police and justice system. But if you lived in the poorer areas of say, Cape-Town, Rio, Port Moresby, St Louis or Los Angeles, you wouldn’t have that same faith in cops and you would more likely not have insurance – so there’d really not be much point.”

Hence: We have higher stats on certain types of crime because more people report them.

Can you explain to me what purpose someone would have for a pistol or a semi-automatic that didn’t involve killing or maiming someone and couldn’t be done with a rifle?

> and syringes…

Yeah, they are there too. Mostly grog bottles though, 500 to 1 easily.

Deamandrinking: I can go out and find a gun control ‘nut’ making a complete fool of themselves. That’s not a rebuttal to gun control, that would merely be a rebuttal to the nut.

The NRA are rubbish. Gun Owners of America and Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership are real organisations.

The first half of your post also has no structure. What are you trying to say?

This will only suceed in pushing people towards even stranger and possibly more dangerous drugs: http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Kitten_Huffing

Shisha and yes Thumper…. See my post above – also was in the “Chron”icle this week.

Sorry, I do have to reply to Justbands, as I encountered a similar NRA rant about Australia turning into the wild west post the introduction of gun laws. I also think it’s part of the topic, as this seems to be about prohibition of instruments that may be used for crimes – guns are the most common and controversial area of that topic.

I encountered an article by some gun nut somewhere on this interweb when trying to get statistics for another argument that claimed Australia and Britain were topping the world in Assault and Theft. Whilst I’m sure we do get our fair share of that here…I was kind of inclined to wonder about places like Brazil, South Africa and PNG – where getting robbed, having stuff nicked and getting an ass-whipping (or a bullet in the head) are famously more common. Australia might be just as violent as most western nations, but there’s a shite-load worse places. The reasons these places, and the US, might not show up the same statistics-wise in those areas is because these statistics are usually collected from people reporting crimes.

Australia has less socio-economic segregation than most countries. Sure, there’s poorer areas and our indigenous community is a different story (and the crime that goes on in some small, isolated communities might also affect us statistically) – but by in large, for the most urbanized country in the world, we often have people from different backgrounds and financial situations living in the same suburbs and even the same streets. This means that victims here more often come from backgrounds where it is advantageous to report crime, as they have insurance, medical care and a better trust in the police and justice system. But if you lived in the poorer areas of say, Cape-Town, Rio, Port Moresby, St Louis or Los Angeles, you wouldn’t have that same faith in cops and you would more likely not have insurance – so there’d really not be much point.

The other area where the NRA’s argument fails is in their quoting of certain statistics about gun crime in Australia. Other than the simple fact that less people die from guns in Australia per capita, in this article they were quoting statistics from Victoria around the late nineties – anyone who’s seen Underbelly might be able to guess why Victoria’s small amount of gun crime might have jumped 300%. Mob wars happen in all major cities, regardless of what the rest of society is like. Look at some of the killing in otherwise safe parts of Europe…

To wind this rant back to bongs, I say, when looking at banning anything that has the potential to be used as crime, one needs to look at the overall effect on the community, rather than how likely the instrument is going to be used for crime. Guns directly cause injury, damage and death when used for the wrong reasons. Bongs cause sleepiness for the offender. Whilst I agree that some people should be allowed to have rifles and shotguns, having some background in country areas where there are responsible gun owners, I don’t see the need for anyone to have a semi-automatic or a pistol for any good reason. Someone having a bong would most likely use it for the ‘wrong’ reason too…but hey, better than cutting hoses and leaving discarded drink-bottle abominations full of dirty water everywhere. There’s responsible banning and there’s irresponsible banning. Richard Mulcahy’s politics seem to to gravitate towards the latter, which speaks for his overall character – probably why he worked for the tobacco industry in the first place.

Legalise it….regulate it…….

Yeah they had hookah smoking at some bar in Melbourne. I was there with the Australian Liberal Students’ Federation for a cocktail function. Having never seen this before I thought ‘well this looks interesting’. Nothing like smoking a cigarette, I was expecting to cough but it was cool and refreshing.

Interesting to read that this includes the sale of Hookahs (aka shishas for those with their mind in the gutter) – turkish tobacco smoking waterpipes.

Having smoked these with strawberry, apple and cherry tobaccos I can vouch for their relaxing qualities. Not only the smoking is relaxing but the whole setting it up, packing the cup and stoking the coals on top – not to mention the sweet sweet smell of hookah smoke (Nothing like tobacco smoke, think of incence in the flavour of the chosen tobacco)

The tobacco is 100% legit – available widely and the ritual that is shisha smoking is eons old.

Good on Mulcahy for lumping everyone together and making otherwise law abiding citizens outlaws.

Top job.

fnaah said :

You’re in the Liberal Party, jakez?

HAHA, yeah. I’ve said it a couple of times and it’s in my biography (although is that even accessible? I can’t find anyone elses).

I’m extremely arrogant and have the crazy belief that I can yank the party in the direction of liberty.

Mulcahy = douche

You’re in the Liberal Party, jakez?

Skidbladnir said :

Golly.

Richard could be proposing a return to the heady Assembly Days of Yesteryear (pages 3 through 46 are all quite dull but on the same topic, which in the end also achieved nothing)…

If there’s a Far Right faction formed by Mulcahy and Zed’s buddies, Canberra can go back even further in time, to a time without young people full of questions, women voters, jazz music…

You have three choices in the Liberal Party. You have the ‘left wingers’ who want to raise taxes and spending a lot, and ban everything they don’t like. You have the ‘right wingers’ who want to raise taxes and spending a little, and ban everything they don’t like. Then you have me, in the corner, pulling my hair out.

It’s not unrepresentative of mainstream Australians though when you think about it.

You mean a return to the buttoned-down plastic-fantastic Madison Avenue scene? Hot diggity!

Golly.

Richard could be proposing a return to the heady Assembly Days of Yesteryear (pages 3 through 46 are all quite dull but on the same topic, which in the end also achieved nothing)…

If there’s a Far Right faction formed by Mulcahy and Zed’s buddies, Canberra can go back even further in time, to a time without young people full of questions, women voters, jazz music…

Funny how you never see smashed up bongs around carparks & kids playgrounds. Beer bottles however….

I was lucky enough to work in a sex/bong shop on the weekends the last time they tried to ban everything that you could smoke with, all this did was raise the sales as people thought that the ban would/could be enforced.

Maybe Richard Mulcahy is getting a bonus for raising the sales at the moment?

As for the gun issue that has been raised, guns are accessible to people who need them for legit purposes as well as non legit purposes. This will be the case for many years to come people, accept it. The Government will never completely succeed in disarming the civil population. At the risk of sounding hackneyed, Guns dont kill people, people kill people. Its true, you cannot deny it.

When i see a stand off between the Police and a “crazed, psychotic pot head” holding a bong up to his hostages head screaming this this will blow her away, then i might think about blanket banning paraphenalia. Until then Richard: You can have my bong when you pry it from my numb, unconscious hands.

Didn’t this idiot pollie also propose a ‘Bong Buy Back’ scheme?

They’ll do that as soon as politics is about governance and reason instead of power and money.

fnaah said :

At a basic level the issues have much in common though, should the government be allowed to legislate against things that it thinks people will/can harm themselves or others with?

I think the distinction lies in themselves/others. You want to do drugs? Knock yourself out, until you have a detrimental impact on others. Then you’re in trouble.

when are they banning tobacco? that seems to be the biggest killer drug, but you can still buy it….

At a basic level the issues have much in common though, should the government be allowed to legislate against things that it thinks people will/can harm themselves or others with?

I think the distinction lies in themselves/others. You want to do drugs? Knock yourself out, until you have a detrimental impact on others. Then you’re in trouble.

Sorry Skidbladnir..fair comment, we got a little sidetracked.

People, get off guns and back on to the drugs.

(topics…)

RE: Gun control…I’ll add a little story from my last trip to the USA. It was not long after Howard had introduced the tougher gun restrictions here (not that they were ever that freely available in any case I may add). I was travelling for work, and whilst out for dinner with the company I was visiting…one of them piped up about the Australian laws. It turns out he was the local NRA rep, and it showed.

Apparently, since the new gun laws were introduced here Australia had become a violent, nearly war-like place. People lived in fear, young women could no longer walk the streets, home invasions were rampant, mafia types controlled our suburbs at gun point. Why? Because us ordinary Australians were forced to give up our weapons & could no longer defend ourselves.

“Wow” I thought, lucky for me this guy was there to tell me what a dangerous place Australia had become. Here I was thinking that (certainly in comparison to his own home country) Australia was quite a nice, peaceful place where I could raise a family without fear.

Point is…this guy really & honestly believed that what he was telling me was the truth & was actually quite shocked when I set him straight. The next day in the office he showed me truckloads of material produced by the NRA supporting his claims of the previous night. According to the NRA, Australians would ALWAYS carry around handguns to “protect themselves & their families” & the new gun laws had thrown law & order here “into chaos”. It was frightening to see how far that organisation would go to spread lies about what was happening on the other side of the world simply to maintain their own “right” to carry around weapons.

jakez, I won’t disappear. For some reason lately, I have a terriffic masochistic streak which leads me to make logically unsound arguments on the internet.

I actually almost made another classic fact checking blunder, I was going to argue that Moore contrasted the crime rate between Vancouver(?) and Detroit based on US versus Canadian gun laws, but as it turns out the populace in both places is equally well armed. This, as you say, would tend to suggest that it’s not gun ownership, per se, but society’s attitude.

Perhaps I’m in favour of strict gun controls here because I believe there are lots and lots of morons here who I wouldn’t trust any further than I could comfortably spit.

Have a good time in Sydney. 🙂

jakez said :

peterh said :

people seem to kill people more often than weapons.

How does one kill a weapon?

with a large sledgehammer.

Not in the US:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/weapons.htm

peterh said :

people seem to kill people more often than weapons.

How does one kill a weapon?

fnaah, I’ll engage you in this for sure but it will be on monday (I’m going to Sydney for the weekend). Please don’t disappear on me coz I think we will have a fun back and forth. For now on Bowling for Columbine I’ll say that he set out to make the case for gun control absolutely, and ended up making the case against it (and he’s made such comments). As for the documentary, I liked it generally, thought it was a bit stoogey in places, and note that he did his usual misdirection of events.

here are some stats from abs:

crime type – murder

Year 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Firearm 50 42 37 32 23 46
Knife 90 72 86 69 78 94
No weapon 125 152 127 115 104 103

people seem to kill people more often than weapons.

Perhaps I watched a different cut of Bowling for Columbine, I’ll have to go and rewatch it. That’s the one where Moore took a victims from the Columbine shootings to KMart headquarters to ask for refunds on the bullets lodged in their bodies?

Didn’t Moore try to highlight a direct link between the prevalence of firearms and the massive level of violent crime in the US?

I’m genuinely curious how you can interpret that film as an argument against gun control.

Japan has the strictest gun control laws in the world and it’s fantastic for the Yakuza

I believe pro-gun Americans are fond of saying things like “if you outlaw guns, then only the outlaws will have guns”, the basic idea being that if crims are going to get guns anyway, “normal” people should be able to defend themselves, or something.

These arguments are fine and rational, when you assume that everyone has the same respect for life and each other as the next person.

I’d rather not live in a place where I might get shot over a misunderstanding. I’d rather not get shot because someone thought I stole their spot in the checkout line. I used to work at a servo, and while I did realise that it was a possibility that I could get held up at gunpoint, I took comfort in the fact that only a small percentage of people had ready access to a firearm.

I think it’s reasonable to correlate lower rates of violent crime in countries with strict gun control.

jakez said :

To follow on from johnboy, the old saying is ‘an armed society is a polite society’.

Let me just make the point that I am for gun control as is the LDP. I believe in licenses and background checks etc. I just don’t believe that gun control and gun bans achieve the ends that people pretend they do.

oh, yes. gun control. that definitely worked, didn’t it?

how many deaths have there been over the last 5 years that were gun (handgun or rifle) related?

where exactly did they get their guns from, as you cannot buy in guns from o/s, or pick up a glock from a local gunsmith?

the black market? of course.

who was directly impacted by the gun laws?

me.

I had to surrender my rifles and pistols – that i used on a property for hunting pigs, roos and rabbits, and at registered gun clubs.

I was profiled by the adf, if I was a psycho, they would have picked it up then. I was punished by the fact that i owned weapons that were deemed illegal.

have i ever thought about using a gun to commit an illegal act?

no.

I enjoyed hunting and competing in comps at clubs.
I did not keep any of my guns in my house, that is where the difference lies. If I was stupid enough to keep one in my house, and found i couldn’t use it in an invasion / argument, etc, I needed to be damn well sure that the other person wouldn’t either.

best not to have them in my home, where they were a threat to me or my family.

control of guns lies in education. If a child believes that guns are dangerous, they are.
if they think that they are just a toy, and no-one corrects them, they are.

so, mulcahy is going to “come after your pipe and your bong, and your mature plants three?” sounds like a nursery rhyme…

To follow on from johnboy, the old saying is ‘an armed society is a polite society’.

Let me just make the point that I am for gun control as is the LDP. I believe in licenses and background checks etc. I just don’t believe that gun control and gun bans achieve the ends that people pretend they do.

justbands said :

Healthy debate is fine jakez, just leave out the “I’m smarter than you” backhanded little digs. They do nothing for your argument in any case & really just make me think “What a tosser”, which I’m sure you’re not so probably best not to come across as such.

…I just defended you.

fnaah said :

Put forward your arguments for gun control.

I’d direct you towards Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine”, and ask you to have a quick look at the results of gun-related violence at http://www.rotten.com (most definitely NSFW, if it still exists).

It’s an unbelievably wonderful comfort not to have to wonder whether the person who has just started to arc up at you at the bar is carrying a glock.

I’ve seen Bowling for Columbine and it made the case against gun control.

How do you know that the person doesn’t have a glock? Japan has the strictest gun control laws in the world and it’s fantastic for the Yakuza. Also, consider the comparative gun violence in places like New York and California when compared to places like New Hampshire and Montana.

You haven’t presented one logical, rational argument. They are out there (well comparatively) for gun control. I’ll help you. Start with http://www.bradycampaign.org and come back.

fnaah said :

Put forward your arguments for gun control.

I’d direct you towards Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine”, and ask you to have a quick look at the results of gun-related violence at http://www.rotten.com (most definitely NSFW, if it still exists).

It’s an unbelievably wonderful comfort not to have to wonder whether the person who has just started to arc up at you at the bar is carrying a glock.

I have to say I find places where people are more likely to be armed are also much more careful to be courteous. “Oh I’m sorry did I spill your drink? Let me get you another one”.

The revolting australian tradition of hauling off and beating up the little guy comes from the safe knowledge that they probably aren’t armed.

On the other hand you’re more likely to survive a beating.

On balance I like gun control but lets not kid ourselves there’s no social upside to the possibility of mutually assured destruction. (Just not a big enough one)

justbands said :

> I would say people like you that are blinded by the hysteria and myths surrounding nuclear power and refuse to objectively look at the issue are the real nutters

Objectively looking at (which I’m perfectly happy to do) is a far cry from “having NO restrictions on”.

I was just about to make that same point actually. This thought prompted me to check their policy and I don’t think their policy advocates ‘no restrictions’.

http://www.ldp.org.au/federal/policies/energy.html

Their policy includes safety and environmental issues being included in costs, which is as it should be.

This leads me to another point that came up above, that being ‘market forces and global warming. Using the market is actually where most ACC policy makers are heading. Strengthening property rights and using the market is basically the prescription that will be used to solve this problem, and I think the LDP’s policy is indicative of this principle.

There are degrees of course. Some libertarians think we should go with a carbon tax, some think we should go with a cap and trade, some think both, some think neither. It is always a very interesting debate (and a public one that is held on the ALS and LDP blogs amongst many other very prominent Aus political/economic blogs such as catallaxy and john Quiggin).

If justbands is willing to look objectively at nuclear power than nothing more can be asked. That is what we all should do instead of taking anything off the table based on emotion. Nuclear power may be part of the solution it may not be, but that choice has to be made on science, economics, and property rights (including our safety).

Children, get of you should get back into the sandpit.

Justbands, you’re feeding a troll.

Put forward your arguments for gun control.

I’d direct you towards Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine”, and ask you to have a quick look at the results of gun-related violence at http://www.rotten.com (most definitely NSFW, if it still exists).

It’s an unbelievably wonderful comfort not to have to wonder whether the person who has just started to arc up at you at the bar is carrying a glock.

Healthy debate is fine jakez, just leave out the “I’m smarter than you” backhanded little digs. They do nothing for your argument in any case & really just make me think “What a tosser”, which I’m sure you’re not so probably best not to come across as such.

> I would say people like you that are blinded by the hysteria and myths surrounding nuclear power and refuse to objectively look at the issue are the real nutters

Objectively looking at (which I’m perfectly happy to do) is a far cry from “having NO restrictions on”.

justbands said :

Haha…you didn’t scare me, just the way I read it.

Oh okay cool.

Anyway, your little point scoring game isn’t impressing me any…& certainly doesn’t line up with your “let’s debate in a mature manner” message. “What I’ve got above will be more than enough fun.”. Are you serious? Why didn’t you just say “I can p155 further than you”? Mature indeed.

No I wasn’t going to piss at you, I just enjoy healthy debate. You are absolutely right it isn’t for everyone. If you don’t want to engage in it then you don’t have to of course. I’ll certainly still talk about the issues.

I have no desire to spat with you. If you want to talk about voluntary voting, awesome. If you don’t, fine. If you say things I will ask you to justify them. Nothing forces you to do so. I expect the same for me.

justbands said :

> http://www.ldp.org.au

I could *nearly* vote for this lot, but they too have some whacky ideas…..voluntary voting, cicitizen initiated referendums ($$$$$$!), no restrictions on uranium mining/nuclear power, guns (yes, they want us to all have guns!), they think “the market” can be left to deal with global warming (hmmmm), major cuts in healthcare, put smoking back into restaurants & bars….the list goes on. Nutters.

Um with regards to nuclear power please allow me to retort.

First off with regards to nuclear waste. There is no safer country in the world to store this waste. In the vast empty deserts of this country there are plenty of places which are suitable and will never have any human settlement anywhere near them. Some of the advantages are 100% geologically stable as has been the case for 100’s of millions going on billions of years. Extremely dry climate with plenty of suitable sites for deep underground burial above the water table.

Its the only power source that is ready to go to replace the 1000 Mega Watt plus scale power stations needed and also make it totally unnecessary to go down this silly carbon trading path that will sink quiet a few of our companies and send us deep in to recession.

For the Rudd government to happily approve of exporting our vast amounts of Uranium for nuclear power elsewhere and not allowing us to use it here in the safest place on the planet for this industry is just stupidity. This has the potential to not only drastically cut our green house gases but also power vast desalination plants emissions free effectively fixing our water problems as well.

I would say people like you that are blinded by the hysteria and myths surrounding nuclear power and refuse to objectively look at the issue are the real nutters

Gentlemen if we could avoid a repeat of the DMD-Maelinar spatting that would be much appreciated.

Address each other’s arguments perhaps?

Haha…you didn’t scare me, just the way I read it.

Anyway, your little point scoring game isn’t impressing me any…& certainly doesn’t line up with your “let’s debate in a mature manner” message. “What I’ve got above will be more than enough fun.”. Are you serious? Why didn’t you just say “I can p155 further than you”? Mature indeed.

johnboy said :

I took it as a rhetorical device rather than as a threat.

No, I really do like to go around to peoples houses and make up rules for them…I have an obscene amount of free time.

justbands said :

“please give me your address so I can come over and set some rules for you in your own home” – ambiguous at best.

Not even close to ambiguous. First of all I didn’t threaten you, I asked for your address. Secondly it was clearly not a literal request but merely designed to illustrate the similarity between a persons home (private property) and a persons bar (private property).

I’m sorry I gave you a scare, I didn’t mean to.

I took it as a rhetorical device rather than as a threat.

“please give me your address so I can come over and set some rules for you in your own home” – ambiguous at best.

…’I didn’t threaten you!’. Not ‘I didn’t threaten you?’.

WHAT? I didn’t threaten you? I merely asked you to justify your positions. I didn’t even say that anything would happen if you didn’t do that.

I assume johnboy passed on my message the other day. I retract it. There’s no point even trying.

> Voluntary voting is whacky? The vast majority of democracies in the world have voluntary voting.

In my opinion, voluntary voting gives scewed (is that a word?) results. ie. People with strong political opinions or affiliations are more likely to vote & certain groups of people are less likely (young people, for example). I believe that to get a result that is representitive of the entire electorate, then the entire electorate has to vote.

> Put forward your arguments for gun control.

Guns kill people. There’s no need for us to carry around guns in this country. We don’t have a “gun culture”, let’s keep it that way.

> There is a difference between a poor policy and a nutty idea. How is this nutty?

Ok, semantics. Poor policy.

> As for putting smoking back into restaurants and bars, I think people who think they can say what other people can do with their property are violent psychopaths and please give me your address so I can come over and set some rules for you in your own home. Justify the smoking bans.

Smoking kills. Passive smoking kills. I don’t have to justify something that many people much better informed & smarter than me have already done over & over again.

Please don’t threaten me, it’s simply not appropriate.

Voluntary voting is whacky? The vast majority of democracies in the world have voluntary voting.

They don’t want us all to have guns, they just don’t support gun bans (but I’m sure that was just poor syntax). Put forward your arguments for gun control.

Citizen initiated referendums I’m unsure on (they can be expensive) but it’s hardly a ‘nutty’ idea. There is a difference between a poor policy and a nutty idea. How is this nutty?

As for putting smoking back into restaurants and bars, I think people who think they can say what other people can do with their property are violent psychopaths and please give me your address so I can come over and set some rules for you in your own home. Justify the smoking bans.

The rest I’ll let go through to the keeper. What I’ve got above will be more than enough fun.

> http://www.ldp.org.au

I could *nearly* vote for this lot, but they too have some whacky ideas…..voluntary voting, cicitizen initiated referendums ($$$$$$!), no restrictions on uranium mining/nuclear power, guns (yes, they want us to all have guns!), they think “the market” can be left to deal with global warming (hmmmm), major cuts in healthcare, put smoking back into restaurants & bars….the list goes on. Nutters.

Morgan said :

Anyone smell electioneering? If the govt was serious about banning things that are not good for you then surely we’d see band on beer, cigarettes, cars, and loose women.

DEAR GOD, don’t give them ideas!

Sleaz274 said :

Let’s hope that’s the whole idea of his independent campaign and he wanders away to cry into his beer to any stranger that will talk to him until he becomes the smelly guy at the bar no one goes near.

Here’s a lesson for all potential political candidates…

PISS THE F&*^ OUT OF OUR LIVES and let people enjoy the tiny amount of time they get in this world. If it causes you nor other people blatant harm then who cares? 99.999% of people merely want to make enough money to enjoy the things they enjoy and lead a good life with friends and family. Stop legislating for the nth degree because you have nothing better to do nor ideas. We do not want to be over taxed and made to pay horribly inflated fees and fines so we can pay for your grandiose and slanted views of the world. GO AWAY you no longer representative the people or the majority and merely dabble at the edges which you invariably f$%^ up anyway.

note to self – no more posting after vodka…

http://www.ldp.org.au

You’d think they have spare time on their hands when it turns to banning bongs and the like. How about fixing the basics first.

Time to buy shares in Orchy bottles and hose pipe…

You might have posted that after a few VAT’s but I fully agree well said.

Let’s hope that’s the whole idea of his independent campaign and he wanders away to cry into his beer to any stranger that will talk to him until he becomes the smelly guy at the bar no one goes near.

Here’s a lesson for all potential political candidates…

PISS THE F&*^ OUT OF OUR LIVES and let people enjoy the tiny amount of time they get in this world. If it causes you nor other people blatant harm then who cares? 99.999% of people merely want to make enough money to enjoy the things they enjoy and lead a good life with friends and family. Stop legislating for the nth degree because you have nothing better to do nor ideas. We do not want to be over taxed and made to pay horribly inflated fees and fines so we can pay for your grandiose and slanted views of the world. GO AWAY you no longer representative the people or the majority and merely dabble at the edges which you invariably f$%^ up anyway.

note to self – no more posting after vodka…

Anyone smell electioneering? If the govt was serious about banning things that are not good for you then surely we’d see band on beer, cigarettes, cars, and loose women.

Skidbladnir said :

WARNING: The Pathology Museum may be viewed by the general public. However, some people may find it disturbing.

Which of course leads this self confessed sick puppy on an excursion directly into the lab… Amazing pics, thanks for the lead Skid! I’ve seen worse but in context of this forum it helps you make a very good point!

I am inclined to agree with Mulcahy for once on this. But I suspect this is not so much a sincere position of conscience, but rather an attempt to downplay and soften the baggage from working with hotel-related industries. Wayne Berry took a big shot at Mulcahy on ABC news tonight saying he had worked for the tobacco industry. If that’s true, it’s some hypocrisy to now feign concern over the health impacts of smoking weed.

Tobacco is not as nasty as other rocket fuel, but i is still nasty in its own right.

Talking point.

Lounge-room decoration.

Skidbladnir said :

Also, there are other legitimate uses for consumer retail glassware and water pipes.

Such as??????

Now what am I going to look at while I’m in the queue to get smokes?

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

jakez said :

‘The Thing’ kind of reminds me of a sandwich I found in my schoolbag at the end of term one year.

…Now I’m hungry. That’s not a good sign.

munchies already?

Also just like needle exchanges there are health reasons for allowing access to water pipes. They are proven to be better on the lungs then smoking joints.

Also, there are other legitimate uses for consumer retail glassware and water pipes.

aah, there’s the rub, see. like, will this affect the sale of hookahs? will it, huh? is that maybe not a contravention of cultural practice? where’s that fuzzy line, mr mulcahy? point, please…

and does anyone else notice the ‘mull’ in his name, carefully hidden by poor spelling??

“Richard Mulcahy pries icepipe from a cold, dead hand” might be a good headline…

Also, there are other legitimate uses for consumer retail glassware and water pipes.

captainwhorebags said :

Oh great, time to disconnect the garden hose from the tap in the front yard.

+1 for this comment…

Another alcopops solution. Look to the cause, not the symptom, Mr Mulcahy. Hell, bud is no worse than alcohol anyway…

‘The Thing’ kind of reminds me of a sandwich I found in my schoolbag at the end of term one year.

…Now I’m hungry. That’s not a good sign.

Doesn’t he know that most younguns start smoking the chronic with something far less elaborate than a bong bought from the local smokes shop? As my learned colleagues here have pointed out, orchy bottles, neighbours’ hoses and other miscellany are the gateway tools that Mr Mulchay (aka Canberra’s biggest square the mo’) needs to worry about.

It’s much easier (and far less heartbreaking) to toss out an gunk-filled orchy bottle when your mum starts getting suss because your clothes don’t actually smell of ‘incense’, than to part with your double barreled chamber of sticky green love.

People are always going to want to blaze up, and be creative about it too. Ban the bong and watch the wasted youth of Canberra come up with new wacky new ways to get high!

Mr Mulchay – you might wear leather patches on a tweed jacket, but you’ve just lost my vote!

Hi Dick,

Bongs are a simple method of ingesting marijuana and sure, you can also smoke it by rolling your own in Tally-hos or by eating it in food.
Lets assume that your senior advisers or yourself have -never- engaged in the act, despite living in a city with a rather vibrant marijuana economy.
So I forgive your minor oversight.

Users can also ingest methampethamine through more than just an ice pipe, but the pipe is probably the cleanest and safest method.
Needles are another easy method, but might I suggest you go and visit the ACT Histopathology Museum first, to see what the after-effects are, when unskilled hands think they know what they’re doing?
WARNING: The Pathology Museum may be viewed by the general public. However, some people may find it disturbing.[1]

For you, I wholeheartedly recommend a viewing of “The Thing” (Do not click the link if you are of a weak disposition, or those around you are also, possibly NSFW) which a great many Canberra students have seen as part of high school Biology (including I suspect your senior adviser Robert J Ayling), is the perspex-encased hand of a man who chose to inject into an artery instead of a vein.
It was ren dered ischaemic through a blockage of his arterties, by the foreign material included in his drug hit, but had it amputated only after the smell of gangrene became too much for him to bear.

Imagine for a moment more people walking around your electorate with similarly gangrenous limbs.
I will do what your advisers should have done, and would urge to reconsider this policy stance befre going public with it.

Oh no, too late.

Regards,

A voter in your electorate

[1]: Anyone up for organising a RiotACT field trip, or even a media coverage of Mulcahy’s attendance?

*Jake senses the opportunity to create a bitter and divisive argument*

Swaggie: Why is it a good idea in theory?

The Authorities can only ever do one of two things – either ban it or tax it. But hell yeah good idea in theory but no practical use.

I wonder what Richard Mulcahy’s libertarian staffer and Molonglo running mate Ben O’Neil thinks about this legislation?

Is he going to stop Bunnings from selling plumbing suplies and increase the numbers of ACT policing so that they can respond every time someone steals 2 inchs off my garden hose?

Quick, lets also not provide clean needles, because our ideology is in conflict with practicalilty.

I suggest Richard Mulcahy can take said bongs and shove them up his ass.

Oh great, time to disconnect the garden hose from the tap in the front yard.