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Last Sunday's obscenity at Bondi has elicited a range of responses.
The most rational are shock, grief and anger. There is also, for me, at least, a sense of numbness. This probably relates to personal experience.
A friendly fire incident on the 13th March 1970 had me within centimetres of half a belt of M-60 at 200 metres. It struck the soldier next to me on the side of his face. He went out on a medivac chopper, had plastic surgery and recovered. He probably used up all his luck. but is still hale and hearty and living in Perth, fifty five years after the event.
That sense of numbness occasionally returns to me, probably as a flashback. I'm sure that those caught in the cone of fire at Bondi will encounter this feeling for the rest of their lives.
The victims need all the support we can give them, but beyond the victims, there are two cohorts cashing in on this obscenity. I use the word "cohort" because it is a neutral term. Perhaps "cabal" is a better expression.
The first is the media. They have an obligation to report, but what I've seen in the last few days is way beyond reporting. They are wallowing in the sensational nature of the tragedy, and milking it ferociously. They have to sell newspapers, attract clicks, and pay their sponsors. The repetitious nature of much of what is posted in social media has become ghoulish.
Then there are the politicians. They use blame, abuse and misinformation to make political capital. Again, I have personal experience of being used as political capital (or more accurately cannon fodder) by those in power in 1969/70.
The issues of gun regulation and radical Islam are in a sense peripheral. To blame the current government and public support for Palestine is completely spurious. The two gunmen were obviously radicalised long before October 7th, and events since would hardly influence such extremists one way or another.
Whether we like it or not, there exists a tiny minority of psychopaths in our population, and nothing government, police, or security agencies can do will ever completely identify them, let alone eliminate them.
Considering that, if we can't eliminate the psychopaths, we can make it more difficult for them to get their hands on the means to carry out slaughter. Imagine the consequences had they carried full automatics.
Best we can do is to live without fear, support one another, and accept that whilst lunatics have the means and motive to frighten us, we should not allow ourselves to be controlled by them.
