Tam laments the firestorm created by two olympic swimmers posing with guns on a trip to California, and the ridiculousness peddled in the media as a result. Apparently they are being punished for this by being forced to return early, and even other shooters don’t really want to stand up for them:
“They all used them [the guns] responsibly and I think that’s where the line in the sand is here, that these guys allowed stupid photographs to be taken of them, one depicting criminal activity, and second of all unsafe activity with a firearm,” he said.
How about a nice “Have you people in the media all lost your bloody minds?” But then again, I suppose no one wants to risk the powers that be coming down on them. I don’t for a minute believe that the majority of Aussies have collectively lost their marbles. I’m sure if you polled people on this controversy before the media parade, the reaction would have been somewhere between “Meh,” and “So What?” This is a media and establishment generated outrage if I ever saw one. This is the establishment telling the little people how they need to think. So maybe the establishment needs to be taken to the woodshed and roughed up a bit.
One thing I’ve noticed is that the shaking of the bowcaster is a bit of an American thing. You don’t really see horizontal interpretive communities popping up, at least not that I can see, in other countries. I’m not speaking here of guns specifically, but where is the Aussie, British or Canadian equivalents of the Dan Rather takedown? I’d note that it was an American that took down the Canadian Government. Perhaps it is because we’re a culture that was born from revolution, or perhaps it’s that this country has exceptionally strong speech protections by world standards (defamation and libel suits are next to impossible to win here, whereas in other English speaking countries, that is not the case). Perhaps there is a whole community of bloggers, forums, tweeters and the like, forming all manner of interpretive communities that I’m missing, but if there is, I don’t notice it. If that’s the case, I’d say it’s time to start taking down some media figures that peddle this kind of nonsense.
