Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

A terrible, terrible thing has befallen our country. Innocent lives have been lost. We stand with the people of Christchurch and those whose lives have been shattered, in denouncing this savage brutality against our peaceful nation.

We are steadfastly refusing to accept this atrocity.

Someone is to blame and someone will pay. We're not taking this without a backlash against someone.

It seems that arresting the suspect and processing him through the court system may not be enough.

There seems a determination that others may need to be punished; whoever gave him a gun licence.

Other gun owners, no matter how innocent, also seem to be in the sights of an angry, mostly ill-informed public. The law abiding, responsible gun owners. They will feel our outrage! How dare you have guns like the one which did so much harm! You disgust me!

Never mind the criminals with guns, or the terrorists with any sort of weapon. They're not accessible right now. But we will hit out at the vast majority of firearms users who are grieving as much as every other New Zealander. The law abiding gun owners - let's give them a rogering.

We will take their guns, make them shamefully hand them in. You may as well have been complicit in the massacre.

Baying for justice

Give up your guns now, says the Prime Minister.

She might as well be crying: 'Come out with your hands up!” like someone who's watched too many westerns.

Yes folks, it is a terrible, horrific, unimaginable holocaust that has occurred in the streets of Godzone, in fact in the City of Christ - the last place in NZ that needed any more upheaval. Not that there's ever an acceptable place for mass murder.

Yet those in power and the mass ignorant are baying for justice and revenge and retaliation… and who better to target than the very people who are hurting as much as anyone - the law abiding, responsible and safe gun owners who have never ever been in question over their impeccable record of safe and considerate firearms use.

Farmers, pest controllers, ethical hunters, recreational shooters with police-endorsed licences and a care for the outdoors and respect for game like no other country on Earth. Many are volunteers striving for the lofty goal of a Predator Free 2050.

They're people who understand better than any of the rest of you how dangerous guns can be, and they are the ones now being targeted as scapegoats, because a nutter went off the rails.

Paying a penance

Never mind that the world has plenty of nutters and they have used a variety of weapons and means to kill innocent people. Never mind that cowardly dickheads have used trucks, planes, bombs and poison to kill innocent people all over the world for all sorts of incomprehensible reasons.

We don't see planes being banned, despite the fact that history now shows that hijacked planes crashing can kill 5000 while guns can kill 50 - proving that airplanes are a hundred times more effective as a weapon.

Gun clubs can be burnt in retaliation, yet airports don't seem to attract the same burning attention despite the fact that those dastardly airplanes are a hundred times more dangerous. Trucks continue to roam the roads, despite their ability to take out 80 people in a single rampage.

The important thing, it seems, is that someone is punished. That legal, caring, legit gun owners pay a penance for one complete fruitloop (alleged at time of writing) who was assessed by police and deemed fit and proper to own firearms.

Presumably he was also deemed fit to drive a vehicle, and could easily have used a truck as a weapon. Or hijacked a jet liner. Or built a bomb. But that's not important right now.

What is important, is that we punish those nasty, beastly, dangerous majority of gun owners.

Maybe the MSSA style firearms need phasing out and a buy-back plan established.

But then we hear the rallying cry of 'ban the semi-automatics” by a whole lot of people who have no idea what that means.

They're parroting the now fashionable call, without any knowledge of how firearms actually work.

The potential for mass evil is how many bullets the shooter has available, before having to reload.

So the problem, dear readers, is not with the loading system but those big magazines, which should be under tighter control. The government had the opportunity to put MSSAs under E-cat years ago, and didn't.

Most modern guns are semi-automatics. They're not evil, they're just common. It's like saying a certain car model should be banned because there's more of them involved in crashes. Well, it so happens, there's more of them on the road. Simple mathematics.

Another huge concern is the ignorance of the media. Just a few nights ago, TVNZ declared this:

That this gun can be easily made 'more powerful”. That is absolute crap. A gun cannot be made more powerful, but its capacity can be increased.

Put simply, it can shoot for longer. That is the problem.

People, I feel your pain in mourning - not only the lives, but the loss of innocence of the most beautiful and peaceful country on Earth. Justice needs to be done and it will be. But please, let's avoid the pointless persecution of people who had nothing to do with this atrocity.

The police did their best, the licencing authorities did their job, but peace-loving, responsible and safety conscious gun-licenced New Zealanders played no part whatsoever.