My name is Blair Anderson, a Policy analyst with the MildGreen Initiative. We have been an active think tank on biopsychosocial issues since 1996, but the writer has been a drug policy reform advocate since 1972. We have given some 16 select committee submissions including specifically Arms Amendments in the past.
We do not support the current bill, but so support the improved policing and registration management of category E arms. We do not support the bill due very significantly to the appallingly short time frame upon which due process is being held. This is a grave breach and will result in unintended consequences, especially as it deals with marginalised individuals and groups, exceptional circumstances (not the least being used to justify rapidity of action) and its interface with a 'law' intersect where 'armed' incidences will be all the more common.
In short, a policy predicated on exceptions makes for poor rules.
We write to alert the committee to the missing link in the conversations around gun control, yet we are fully aware of necessity for the policy response subsequent to the 15:03 ChCh Mosque event, noting that the public dialogue (somewhat managed by MSM) has underestimated the role of drug policy, that lack of urgency given to the review of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 its contribution enforcement to alienation from rule of law and to deviancy amplification....
Picture if you will, the alcohol prohibition era "Tommy Gun" and the 'arms race' escalation, mass murders and primarily inter-gang incidences. Now put that into today's context... We could, and should ask what have we learned?
We are in effect, fuelling the fear of crime.....
"When you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow!" - Nixon aide, Charles Colson
We do not support the current bill, but so support the improved policing and registration management of category E arms. We do not support the bill due very significantly to the appallingly short time frame upon which due process is being held. This is a grave breach and will result in unintended consequences, especially as it deals with marginalised individuals and groups, exceptional circumstances (not the least being used to justify rapidity of action) and its interface with a 'law' intersect where 'armed' incidences will be all the more common.
In short, a policy predicated on exceptions makes for poor rules.
We write to alert the committee to the missing link in the conversations around gun control, yet we are fully aware of necessity for the policy response subsequent to the 15:03 ChCh Mosque event, noting that the public dialogue (somewhat managed by MSM) has underestimated the role of drug policy, that lack of urgency given to the review of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 its contribution enforcement to alienation from rule of law and to deviancy amplification....
Picture if you will, the alcohol prohibition era "Tommy Gun" and the 'arms race' escalation, mass murders and primarily inter-gang incidences. Now put that into today's context... We could, and should ask what have we learned?
We are in effect, fuelling the fear of crime.....
"When you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow!" - Nixon aide, Charles Colson
Please reconsider the haste and allow for full and unfettered public engagement with due process, or the legacy will be flawed - as in the case of the Psychoactive Substances Act. (another chronic and systemic failure exacted under some urgency to a moral dilemma)
I would ask to present orally and ask that it be noted were the committee to give both time and transparency to consider due process, that this submission would be enhanced by supplementary material presenting the evidential case for considering the implications of deviancy amplification, especially when intersectoral analyis resolves, reducing harms from the prohibition of both weapons and drugs.
The following image 'the tommy gun' should be 'telling' us, history is repeating itself. We can do better.... slow down, and smell the flowers.
I would ask to present orally and ask that it be noted were the committee to give both time and transparency to consider due process, that this submission would be enhanced by supplementary material presenting the evidential case for considering the implications of deviancy amplification, especially when intersectoral analyis resolves, reducing harms from the prohibition of both weapons and drugs.
The following image 'the tommy gun' should be 'telling' us, history is repeating itself. We can do better.... slow down, and smell the flowers.
This post first appeared on Canvassing For Opinion - Aka "Blairs Brain On Cann, please read the originial post: here
