Garth McVicar is Right: Congratulations to the Police

Dieuwe de Boer
Opinion

Early morning on Saturday 31st March, just north of Auckland, a man was shot after he threatened the police with a machete. From what we know, it's a pretty clear-cut case. The police respond to a call-out, pursue an individual who poses a danger to the public, and eventually neutralise the threat. On social media, there were the usual ignorant comments, like "they should have shot him in the leg, used a taser, or defused the situation some other way, etc."

What is the most appalling and disgusting thing is that there are so many who come out to defend a violent criminal. To many on the left, the lives of criminals are treated as sacred. Not the unborn, not defenseless women who are denied their natural rights to self-defense, not the lives of the public or the police, not the lives of the elderly and the sick. The only lives that hold a higher status in their minds are those of the scum of society.

The biggest outrage though, was generated by Garth McVicar, founder of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, which supports victims of serious violent crime and murder, after he went on Facebook and congratulated the police for their decisive action:

One less to clog the prisons! Congratulations to the New Zealand Police, our thoughts are with the officer who was forced to take this action to protect the public.

It costs nearly $100,000 a year to keep someone incarcerated, and if you've been a victim of crime or know those who have, you will know that plenty of thugs don't ever make it to prison. Mr McVicar's comments were denounced as insensitive, but let's ask the real question. Based on the facts we have available, did this man deserve to die? Yes, he did. By initiating an attack on another individual, he forfeited his life to the response of his would-be murder victim, in this case a member of the New Zealand Police who happened to have access to superior firepower. In jurisdictions that more commonly have armed police, the colloquial term for this is "suicide by cop."

I can feel Mr McVicar's frustration. He's had to deal with this nonsense for years. Our "justice" system's sole purpose appears to be to protect criminals from justice while screwing victims over a second time. It's good to see police take decisive action before someone got hurt rather than after. This policeman had to take action to defend his own life, and in doing so he had to end someone's life. That's no laughing matter for anyone. With Garth McVicar, I say to the police: congratulations for doing the right thing and not allowing a dangerous individual to get away without facing the consequences of his actions.

There is a double standard though: the police can defend themselves. What about us? A gun store was attacked in a similar fashion by a machete wielding man. The owner took a pistol from under the counter and shot the intruder. The store owner was charged with "possessing a firearm without lawful, proper or sufficient purpose" and put through a year of hell by the police. Thankfully, the case was thrown out by two justices of the peace. The police bureaucracy essentially said that it would have been better for this man, and his colleague, to be murdered (and dozens of firearms to be stolen), rather than to allow his "crime" of self-defence to go unpunished. These horrific double-standards need to end: New Zealand needs real and clear self-defense laws that restore this God-given right which has all but been taken from us.

As this recent saga shows us, the police have this right to self-defense, but that's not good enough. "One law for them" and "one law for us" is a hallmark of a police state. This policeman did the right thing and should not be punished for it, and neither should anyone else in a similar situation.

 

About the author

Dieuwe de Boer

Editor of Right Minds NZ, columnist at The BFD, and Secretary General for the New Conservatives. Follow me on Telegram and Twitter. In addition to writing about conservative politics and reactionary thought, I like books, gardening, biking, tech, reformed theology, beauty, and tradition.