Seems like we’re living in the last days of Rome.
Malcolm Turnbull has announced a new counter terrorism strategy to deal with the rise of mass casualty vehicle attacks. It couldn’t come at a better time for the authoritarian in chief, currently embroiled with the very real prospect of losing his government due to the ongoing citizenship debacle.
Sky News reports:
“A counter-terrorism strategy document will be given to Australian businesses and councils, outlining ways to prevent vehicle attacks similar to those seen in Barcelona and Nice. Speaking to party faithful in Launceston Tasmania Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull confirmed a national strategy for protecting crowded places from terrorism had been completed.
‘We will shortly release the first national strategy for protecting crowded places from terrorism, it has been completed,’ he said on Saturday. Mr Turnbull says the government has brought together state and territory police, intelligence agencies, overseas counterparts, private sector, local government and owners of big venues.
‘And we have brought together a comprehensive strategy.’ Mr Turnbull referred to the terrorist attack in Nice saying the use of vehicles is a ‘new approach by terrorists’.
‘Vehicles are very easy to acquire, it’s not really possible to stop people getting hold of a truck or a car. As you’ve seen in London, relatively light vehicles can do enormous damage.’
So much for “vehicles not as dangerous as firearms.” Not hard to acquire illegal firearms in this country too either, Malcolm. Man Monis, Farad Jabbar, Rick Maddison or Yacqub Khayre ring any bells?
As usual, no talk of self-defence for law abiding citizens or anything that will actually work or give citizens’ a fighting chance. What’s next, storing cars with the batteries removed? Amazing also how registration doesn’t stop vehicle attacks, much like firearm registration doesn’t stop firearm crime.
So what happens when they start using explosives again? Or go back to firearms? (we know what the excuse given there will be). Or even burning down buildings as has been suggested? Plenty of allegedly dodgy cladded buildings across the country now to choose from for any potential terrorist nutjob.
Perhaps the most memorable line from Turnbull:
‘We will never bow, we will never be cowered by them, we will defeat them and destroy their evil ideology.’
That’s great, Malcolm. So in other words, we’re not going to bow to them but we’re going to cower behind even more security apparatus and have to change our way of life particularly large, mass gathering events. Stay at home! Shelter in place!
The 800lbs gorilla in the room is quite clearly our immigration program but it seems the Australian Government is doing everything it can to keep the doors open. This pushback from AusGov seems even more pronounced after both Dick Smith and Corey Bernardi weighed in on immigration this past week, proposing massive cuts on all fronts.
Immigration is beyond our remit and pay grade here at FOU, but I would highly recommend the excellent work of Leith Van Onselen aka the Unconventional Economist over at Macrobusiness, who has been sounding the alarm over our “Big Australia” Ponzi Scheme for years.
This latest announcement from Turnbull just re-affirms the Australian Government as a one trick pony. Collectively punish everyone by curtailing freedoms for all because a few individuals are irresponsible. Firearm owners know that all too well.
Now, contrast this with the recent example of the Czech Republic’s government which gave the green light for Czech citizens to shoot terrorists. This is also what Liberal Democrats Senator David Leyonhjelm suggested earlier in the year. The Czech’s also remember all too well what the oppressive rule of communism did to them and the consequences of the restrictions of liberties. No wonder the EU authoritarians are trying to sue them.
The way Australia is currently headed it seems we are trying our best to repeat their historical mistake.
However, fear not folks. National Truck Amnesty inbound!
Bollards. you simply cannot place enough of them to make a difference as the next vehicular attack will just go outside the boundary. Also, terrorism is an adaptive threat, if you could put in enough bollards to take vehicles out of the picture, then they go back to knives and use the concrete barriers to help contain the victims.
Firstly lets recognise some facts, with 500,000 muslims in the country, even if only 1/2 a percent go for jihad that is 2500 potential terrorists, we don’t have the police to monitor that sort of threat, secondly can we please stop calling Police “first responders”, the first responders to a terrorist threat are the intended victims – if we give law abiding Australians the right defend themselves and the legal right to arm themselves to do so, the potential damage that a terrorist can do goes down sharply.