The Australian hostage siege.

Not well at all :nonod:

I hope your daughter is safe and well. I'm sure she will be.

I suspect that the gunman started shooting so the police went in.

Sofia is fine, thankfully they'd stayed in as they'd just had a bit of a flight.

talkingcars wrote: thankfully they'd stayed in as they'd just had a bit of a flight.

Just as well really James. Fetching coffee in the morning will never be the same for many.

I voted, and was hoping that it would end well. Statistically, I suppose a government might think that it did.

Realistically, quite a few families will be in mourning over this unneccesary dire incident. Should it have happened? In my opinion, No. That man should never have been on bail for being an accomplice to his own wifes murder.. and over 40 sexual offences, plus his terror related history! Someone's get sued over this for sure! Why oh why?

Do you think a lot of people, shop workers inclusive, will arm themselves in the wake of all this?

After the Lee Rigby muder, my wife asked me why the wheel brace was in the glovebox. I told her that it was only there because I don't own a gun.

No I don't think that this incident would cause all that many in this country to "tool up"
Those who would be inclined to do so, probably already are.
I'm more than familar with firearms, explosives etc and realisticly it's highly unlikely that if such an incident were to occur, that you'd be able to access your "self defense weapon" quickly enough to be of any use, unless you've got it in a holster on your person and you had the skill, training and piece of mind to be able to depoy it accurately enough to get the drop on your attacker.
After all your attacker has the element of surprise on their side.

Unfortunately, like the UK, law-abiding Australians have for the most part been disarmed by their government so self-defence isn't
a practical option. People on the wrong side of the law who are intent to do wrong are able to source weapons.
It doesn't even take a firearm, back in the 90's the Oklahoma City bombing resulted in over 200 casualties from a fertilizer bomb.

Having seen the camera pics from the standoff I can't help but think a Police Sniper could have made short work of that piece of trash.
Lets hope that police re-assess their tactics for future incidents, and there WILL be future incidents.

I guess is that at least part of the reason for not using a sniper to solve the problem was that the offender was wearing a backpack that could've potentially contained explosives........that and political squeamishness, the rarbag dogooders would've kicked up a stink about the offenders human rights :nonod:

Sod human rights for the scumbags. They lost the rights to them when they commit heinous acts like this.