Rhosty, I agree with most of what you're saying here, but you're wrong on one point:
"Not all that long ago, Australian of the year, Adam Goode, was horribly and shamefully racially vilified by a gormless and incredibly insensitive young white girl!"
That is untrue.

He wasn't horribly and shamefully vilified. He wasn't vilified at all. He was insulted. The insult was based on his physical appearance, and he took offence because he wrongly assumed it to be racially motivated, but in reality the girl wasn't even aware of his race.

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Jay, crack cocaine was a huge problem before crystal meth was even invented, and the slowness of the latter to catch on means that it's a relatively recent problem, whereas communities torn apart by crack have been dysfunctional for decades. Also the rural areas are less conducive to the formation of gangs than the high density urban areas.

It's hard to take you seriously when you make such absurd claims as "there was no repression in apartheid South Africa". Being a police state that oppresses the majority of the population was not an effective way to control black crime (it almost provoked a revolution) and resulted in many people regarding the police as their enemies, which was a major cause of the crime problem that RSA still has.

Differences between racial groups are minuscule compared to differences within racial groups, and certainly don't justify discrimination.

An observation on South Africa; one of the news films taken at Soweto shews the European police firing their pistols over the heads of the crowd and the Zulu policemen firing carefully aimed shots from their .455" Mk VI Webley revolvers into the crowd.

misanthrope,

I do know a bit about guns and I'm wearing Department of Veterans' Affairs shoes, DVA support stockings, have a DVA back support belt (for when I need it), DVA spectacles and DVA hearing aids, and a DVA Gold Card for medical benefits and a visit once every six weeks to a podiatrist; my home was partly paid for by a Defence Services Home Loan and I receive a Service Pension.

Why do I have all of these things, besides a chest full of medals (Australian on the left breast and a Foreign one on the right)?

Because I've been there and done that, both in the Australian Army and a Foreign one, had good mates shot and wounded beside me and my Australian Army Discharge Certificate states, under marks and scars, "....circular gun shot wound, lower angle of the left jaw".
I am returned from Active Service and wear the Blue Beret of the UN on appropriate occasions.

Hello,

An opinion page I found re the Senator's remarks - has good links and comments:

http://theaimn.com/i-wont-be-carrying-a-gun-and-i-dont-want-you-to-either/

One person highlighted shocking links to violence in the U.S involving weapons (like one incident at a cinema).

1. The article link: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/01/14/us/florida-man-is-shot-to-death-for-texting-during-movie-previews.html?referrer=&_r=0

2. Comments from U.S citizens re the article: http://mobile.nytimes.com/comments/2014/01/14/us/florida-man-is-shot-to-death-for-texting-during-movie-previews.html (over 500)

Finally as one person pointed out (in general), "Those who don't have guns or other weapon types for protection, they will be the real victims, if the proposals like the Senator are proposing were to go ahead."

That being those with "protection" will be O.K and those "without" will not - lets say like a child walking home from school - or would the Senator have weapons placed in their school bags?

Yes, Nathan...but never fear..the good old US always comes up with a solution to protect the kiddies from that gun-toting country's "freedoms".

Behold! - the "Bodyguard Blanket".

http://www.smh.com.au/world/bodyguard-blanket-the-latest-bulletproof-product-to-protect-us-students-during-school-shootings-20140610-zs2wk.html

"An Oklahoma company has created a bulletproof blanket that children can wear like a backpack to shield themselves in the case of a school shooting.

The Bodyguard Blanket, which costs $1000, is the latest body armour product targeted at school students in the United States, where parents and schools can already buy bulletproof jackets, backpacks, and whiteboards.

Gun-control lobby groups say there were at least 44 school shootings in the US - an average of more than three a month - between December 2012 and February 10, 2014."

"According to the makers, the students can put the blankets on their back and line-up in the hallway to "develop a shield like the Romans and Greeks used to lock together".

The blanket is advertised as military-grade and able to provide protection against 90 per cent of the weapons that have been used in school shootings. It is made from high-density ballistic-resistant plastic and has straps which children can clip around them to have "head-to-toe defence".

The developers say the blanket has passed the National Institute of Justice 3A Test, which is used to test body armour for police, and means it can protect people against projectiles including bullets from a 9mm, a 12-gauge buckshot and a .22-calibre gun.

Other "school safety" bulletproof products on the market include panels that can be inserted into backpacks, clipboards that can absorb "multiple magazines of ammunition from handguns or shotguns" and "peel-n-stick door armour"."

In the 21st century, this is how American schoolkids face their day....

To Poirot.

My own high school at Moore Park, Sydney, had an armoury where we had 100 Mark III, Lee Enfield rifles, and four Bren light machine guns. We also shot Lee Enfield's that had been re barrelled to .22 calibre on the school's rifle range. After taking our .303 rifles home on the bus after shooting at Malabar, we would saunter into class on Monday mornings with our rifles, and stack them against the class room wall. But there were no school shootings. Kids did not kill kids because we knew right from wrong.

For fifty years, our entertainment media has been given license to change the cultural values of western people, from the generally peaceful and law abiding one of the North European Protestants, to a more violent one more appropriate to Islamic, Hispanic, or black societies. Our media has bombarded our kids, some of whom are poorly socialised, immature, and with borderline personality disorders, with the idea that men who can do incredibly violent acts to revenge themselves for personal problems, are men to be admired. And these men are sexually attractive to gorgeous females.

The media has created movies and pop songs which validate misogyny, glamourise the suicide of schoolchildren in class, advocated drug abuse, admired graffiti, and promoted criminal gang membership, as well as promoting the idea that criminals lead exciting and glamourous lives. We have then created computer games showing kids how much fun it is to steal cars, rape women, deal drugs, and shoot people down in large numbers.

Here in NSW, there have been three homicides, or attempted homicides, involving schoolchildren as victims and perpetrators. One involved the shooting death of a schoolboy by another schoolboy in the Arab area of Sydney, which the NSW Police call "the Gaza Strip." Another occurred on the Central Coast, when a high school boy shot and wounded his ex girlfriend with a crossbow. The last occurred on the North Coast, when a schoolboy emulated the bullied teen on the pop video "Jeremy" (Pearl Jam) and committed suicide in class using a sawn off shotgun.