Gun Control Australia spokesman John Crook said it was a new low for the pair.Stop the presses! Olympic-level jocks playing "macho boys*"? Oh, dear! And now they've got that icky gun essence all over their hands, and it just won't wash off! Port Arthur! Port Arthur!
"If ever there was a photo of two kids playing macho boys this is it," he said.
Gad, I am embarrassed for my Aussie pals right now.
*Love, love, love how it's apparently just a given that "macho boy" is to be read as pejorative.
(H/T to Unc.)
Re: macho boys.
ReplyDeleteYet if you talk about the feminization of culture in recent years or how traditional masculinity has been attacked and reduced, you get called a woman-hater... Activists hate being told that they've been effective.
Yrro,
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you just say "Candyman" five times? Now I predict that in ten comments or less, we'll be having a rousing debate between the "All sex is rape" and the "All women are lying whores" crowds, both of whom bore me to tears.
Yeah, it's beyond parody. One wonders if our 17 member shooting team will meet the same fate.
ReplyDeleteThe reality is that most of us think this is ridiculous and is just a flimsy excuse to boot these two guys from the team. One injured a teammate in a bar-fight in '08 (declared bankruptcy rather than pay the court-ordered restitution) the other lied to the police about a hit and run rather than admit that he broke his arm skateboarding.
This photo shouldn't have been enough rope on its own but they already had pretty big bullseyes on them. Douchebags they are, dangerous they ain't.
What's sad is that it would seem not enough people in Australia care enough to take their culture back from these pant wetters.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to be willing to bet if you did a poll, most Aussies would think the whole thing is overblown. They just don't care enough to shout down those who are claiming to be their betters.
@Tam
ReplyDeleteSorry :/
"One wonders if our 17 member shooting team will meet the same fate."
ReplyDeleteThis plus 9000.
I've seen several pictures of them with guns on teh internets. Haven't felt like killing anyone yet.
I was expecting at least AR type black rifles. They don't have shotguns in the rural areas of Australia?
ReplyDeleteWhat needs to happen has already been spoken, and by an Australian, no less:
ReplyDeleteAustralia needs to harden the fuck up.
http://www.gunsandammo.com/files/2012/06/queen-elizabeth-shooting-a-gun.jpg
ReplyDeleteI guess the Queen will be asked to leave also.
One thing I noticed right away was the fact that these boys had no idea what they were doing with the firearms. "Git yur booger-hooks offen the bang levers, you nitwits!"
ReplyDeleteOne result of raising a generation of gun fearing wussies is ignorance of the most basic safety rules.
Oak, I still think Miz Liz was lighting up that iPod Teh Won gave her.
ReplyDeleteAnd I've seen gun-induced PSH before, but day-um.
In all fairness to the Aussies, I suspect our own swimmers would get the same treatment from the New York/LA Times or Washington Post.
ReplyDeleteGood thing there isn't a picture of them driving on the right hand side of the road...
ReplyDelete(I woulh have said having sex with 16 year olds. But that's legal in Australia...
As a lifetime shooter, the following almost physically hurt me:
ReplyDeleteThere were a few British young men visiting the Texas hill country last year. I saw them at a department store in sporting goods. The salesman had seen this before. They wanted to pose with firearms. Pictures were snapping all over as they posed. But they couldn't figure out how to hold them correctly. My dad started me shooting when I was five or so. With an old Sprigfieled .22 bolt rifle that was longer than I was tall! Seeing these poor fellows with absolutely no knowledge of gun safety or gun handling was sad beyond words.
They were all smiles and happy, but just pathetically inept.
It was just a 100 years ago that a British gent was to be adept at self defense and they owned and carried arms for protection. Not so any more.
Sad beyond words....
Man, this just doesn't compute. Is this the same country that gave us the coast watchers in WW2...fought bravely and well in WW2, Korea and other wars. It just does not compute...
ReplyDeleteTam,
ReplyDeleteHow come the article accuses the pair of posing with "high-powered weapons"? They look like a moderate 1911 style pistol, and a couple of bird/skeet shot guns to my amateur eye. No bazookas, no Mosins, no M1 or BAR in sight.
And the article's ""It's a disgrace to the Olympic swimming team," Mr Crook said." seems a bit bigoted, in the unreasoned hateful sense. Doesn't Crook support Olympic shooting teams? I mean, heaven forbid that a swimmer should be seen pushing a sibling on a swing set, thus ringing in images of *gasp* gymnastic activities!
Let me guess, though. I wonder if Port Arthur wasn't another posted, advertised Disarmed Victim Zone. If the folk creating Disarmed Victim Zones were to be held responsible for creating mass shooting settings, the way bartenders serving drunk drivers are held responsible, we might hear a different plaint. *
That said, I would not encourage my daughter, or son, to date either one of a pair with this cavalier attitude about guns. Mugging like this for the camera, even without the guns, is not a display of honor or character. "Macho" as a pejorative comes to mind, as does "juvenile".
@LCB,
ReplyDeleteThere's another level on which it doesn't compute, namely, all the citizens of Australia (except the Maori) are descended from criminals (see "The Fatal Shore"). You'd think the population would still possess some healthy measure of pugnacity.
Hah!, You think that's bad?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9328503/Police-in-19-hour-stand-off-with-man-wielding-bottle-of-Cillit-Bang.html
Ban anyone holding anything with a trigger here in WUTBGB
I'm embarrassed of my country yet again.
Is it PC to admit that I've been financially raped by lying whores?
ReplyDeleteGallipoli to this, in under a century?
ReplyDeleteAlex Duncan above may be correct, an ecuse to dump badly behaved eedjuts. A stretch, but possible. Still, if so. asinine verbiage: does anyone doubt that Johnny Weissmuller (Olympic Gold for Australia, introduced the Australian Crawl [then movie Tarzan]) knew how to habdle firearms?
ReplyDeleteAll women just want to rape me.
ReplyDeleteI wish ...
( I'll let someone else accuse me of being a lying whore )
And Crocodile Dundee rolls over in his grave.
ReplyDeleteWell there's your problem right there. "Gun Control Australia spokesman..."
ReplyDeleteTranslation; "Lunatic". -- Lyle
@RKN
ReplyDeleteAustralia - Maori??!!?
There are a lot of New Zealanders living in Australia, some no doubt are Maori. The Australian natives are NOT Maori.
As to "all are descended from criminals" - that is patently untrue. There were MANY free settlers in the early days of the Australian colonies, and there have been many immigrants since those days.
The Western Australian colony at Perth was founded in 1829 with the arrival of free settlers and man who would become the first Lieutenant-Governor, Capt. Stirling.
The cities are like this - my friends find it disturbing that I have guns (but can't wait to shoot them when they come to the farm). But, hang on, I'm a doctor and Harold Shipman in the UK proved that you can be the world's highest achieving serial killer with just a prescription pad.
ReplyDeletemike
I quote the esteemed (and sadly missed) Mr Kim du Toit in describing this unbelievable furore over a photograph - "Pants Shitting Hysteria".
ReplyDeleteNever a truer word.
Do we want to drive MR. Strong absolutely bat guano? Let's tie 'im down and force him to watch Aussies shooting Olympic events, or even worse, the Bianci Cup, where they use (horror!) PISTOLS being drawn from HOLSTERS!!! It's a damn shame that it's illegal to thump an idiot hard enough to get the point across...(sigh). JohninMd(help?)
ReplyDeleteThere has been some push back against this:
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/league_of_non_olympians/
A newspaper that 15 years ago was circulating petitions to ban guns has replied with a post your favourite guns column.
The original story ran in the newspaper of record of the bedwetting left. They also ran an online poll, only managing 16% agreement with the article from their own base.
Sendarius,
ReplyDeleteAustralia, New Zealand... one of those place where you foreign people who talk funny live.
(Obviously I am just taking the piss. Ouch. Stop hitting me. ;) )
@Tam:
ReplyDeleteTaking the piss is an Australian tradition, so don't worry about ME. It's the Maori you have to worry about - those guys are HUGE. :)
Sendarius,
ReplyDeletePffft! I've seen the Nossal High School All Blacks. I don't sweat them. ;)
I blame indescriminate breeding.
ReplyDelete