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Water pistol seized as man arrested over alleged shooting of replica gun near NSW parliament (www.abc.net.au)

submitted 3 days ago by NaevaTheRat@vegantheoryclub.org to c/sydney@aussie.zone

6 comments fedilink hide all child comments

lmfao the language "discharged a replica firearm" certainly sounds scarier than squirted a waterpistol at the ground.

Given rideshare driver (is this relevant?) this smacks of driving while black type discrimination.

Obviously the toy looks a bit real, but it seems to me all this needed was "hey we had a complaint, that looked real, why not hand it over and go home for a bit?" Although even so Queensland allows very realistic toy guns and AFAIK it's not some lawless hellscape of fake holdups.

BTW bonus fact. A spud gun, like fires a fragment of potato via a spring, is almost certainly an illegal firearm in nsw. Heaps cool.

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[–] zero_gravitas@aussie.zone 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Given rideshare driver (is this relevant?) this smacks of driving while black type discrimination.

I think you're on to something here. Any behaviour becomes 10x more threatening to the public/cops when the person doing it has brown skin.

Obviously the toy looks a bit real, but it seems to me all this needed was “hey we had a complaint, that looked real, why not hand it over and go home for a bit?”

Thing is, he'd already left the scene when he was arrested. They had to track this guy down to arrest him and confiscate his property, and it's not even clear that he was breaking any law. Seems like they would have had time to check that?

I also don't know why they keep saying it was "discharged" like that's a relevant detail. It's not like it made it more threatening, because if you see someone pull a trigger and it doesn't make a loud pop, then you know it's not a real gun (or at very least it's not a loaded gun). Unless this is a weird kind of water pistol that does make some kind of a pop? Also, if people are close enough to see the trigger being pulled then they're probably also close enough to see the spray of water. It'd be far more effective to just brandish it if you wanted to scare people.

[–] NaevaTheRat@vegantheoryclub.org 6 points 3 days ago

Yeah I assume some wowser panicked and called the cops on the scary brown man with a gun. I shoot 22s, am not exactly a gun nut but am also astounded at general fear and ignorance of firearms in city dwellers despite their actual massive presence there.

Like fair cop OK, he's an idiot for bringing it out in public but nothing indicates he was trying to scare people or do anything nefarious. Hang me for this if you like but I reckon we should be a bit forgiving of people doing silly things if alls well and they understand that the forgiveness is conditional on doing better going forwards.