Crims and Driving at the Wheel

I see in the paper the other day a 16 year old guy got 3 months in a youth detention centre for stealing a car crashing it and killing two innocent people. This guy had 60 prior convictions!!

So I'm sure a 3 month holiday in a youth detention centre is really going to help. Yeah right!!

I don't care how bad his up bringing was or how sociaty has failed him. That's just bullshit!!
By the time anyone is 16 they know right from wrong. So they should get the book thrown at them when they break the law.

Things will probably catch up with this guy eventually and he will end up spending time in jail. But how many other innocent people will he screw with until that happens?

Then there was the 62 year old doctor caught reading while driving. Her excuse was the book was just too good to put down.

I'm a bit lost for words here. This women should have known better. The PC people go on about guns and people miss using them. But a car is a 1 tonne projectile that will do a hell of a lot more damage than a gun.

She only got a $400 fine. This is just as bad or worse than driving drunk. If I had my way she would be allowed on the road agin.

Government Energy Strategy

Tonights news had an article about the government's startegy's with regards to energy resources, sustainable energy, and emmision levels. There was quite a bit about how they may look at putting a cap on how many gas guzzling cars are imported and encouraging fuel efficient/hybrid cars etc.

I didn't hear one thing about motorcycles and their possible promotion as more efficient means of transport. As this is something pretty close to my heart I intend to send an email to the minister for energy David Parker and maybe you can if you want to comment. His email address is

david.parker@parliament.govt.nz

This gist of my email will probably go along the lines of the post I put on by bike blog a while ago which you can see here:

http://banditrider.blogspot.com/2006/11/save-planet-ride-bike.html

More info at the below links on the governments dreaming:

http://stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3896467a10,00.html

http://stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3896342a11,00.html

Speak up if you've got any thoughts on this!

Defending our Patch Part 2

On the news tonight - the guy charged with possessing a firearm without lawful, proper or sufficient purposes after shooting a maniac with a machete has had his first day in court. He has decided to face trial by jury with both himself and his father saying that they are going to fight the charges all the way. Good for him - let's hope he gets some justice...

His father has been pretty outspoken about the case and has made some good points, particularly:

The court case is ruining their lives (very stressfuly for the family etc) and that they are having to fund the defense themselves while the scumbag with the machete got legal aid.

It is good to see that they are receiving a lot of support and some donations etc from members of the public and in particular the Sensible Sentencing Trust. The SST has also got a pettition going around - hope I get the chance to sign it.

After seeing part of a 60 minutes doco on this (where the cop making the charges was made to look like a bit of an idiot) it seems that the reason that the charges were made was because of the way that the gun had been stored. The cops seem to be more worried about a gun around people who know how to handle them (gun retailers) than the high likelyhood that the nutter with the machete could have killed someone. I'd say they're already regretting pressing the charges - talk about bad PR...

I'm not really sure what to do if some scumbag breaks in to my house tonight and wants to kill me - do you fight back or just lay down and die so as you don't make any trouble? If I had a gun, there's no question I'd use it - first shot in the cretin, the next into the roof for a warning shot, whoops did I get that around the right way?

See more here: http://stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3890625a11,00.html