DEMOCRACY, THE ADLER AND BIRTH CONTROL

My disdain for online petitions is no secret among those who know me. Digital petitions indulge ignorance, facilitate instant gratification through the expression of gross intolerance and are prone to manipulation by the unscrupulous.

Once upon a time, the petitioner was tasked to demonstrate some commitment to his/her cause by canvassing "the average right-thinking man or woman in the street".  Those approached could ask questions, while the petition’s peddlers would also be exposed to the views of a more-or-less random sampling of people and their opinions on the petition’s thrust.

Online petitions, on the other-hand, require little or no commitment on the part of the petitioner, beyond the willingness to outline an objection or gripe.

Petition facilitators such as Change.org, Get-Up and Communityrun, to name but a few, will then disseminate one’s plea using their databases to target, not “the community”, but those members of it who’ve previously demonstrated a propensity for signing similar petitions.

These facilitators are essentially mass marketing companies exploiting the bourgeoning outrage economy.

The signatory’s email address, which serves as a unique identifier in lieu of the traditional signature, along with other information such as one’s postcode, is then used to track and record the individual’s political persuasions, their likes and dislikes, so that invitations to sign similar petitions may be issued.

This has seen petition signing develop into something of a hobby or crusade among some, especially the marginalised and disaffected who derive a sense of personal empowerment from supporting or opposing causes they have little knowledge of and perhaps no personal stake in at all.

An example of this was seen in a petition launched in 2014 in an attempt to derail an annual outdoors and hunting expo held in the small rural NSW township of Narooma.

The petition, much vaunted as evidence of overwhelming community opposition to HuntFest, garnered the support of some 40,000 signatories, 34,000+ of which, it was later revealed, were not residents of Australia or its territories.

This did not stop the petitioners presenting their ‘evidence’ to their local Council’s  Greens representative, who proudly tabled it before her fellow Councillors as undeniable proof of the breadth of opposition to HuntFest....in Patagonia, Israel, Finland and possibly the planet Alderaan.

This sort of manipulation is as commonplace as it is unprincipled. So much so, that one might even suggest it is intrinsic to the digital petition phenomenon. 

Take for instance the more recent case of a petition opposing the importation/ownership of the much publicised and oft misrepresented Adler lever-action shotgun.

The nature of the petition warrants no exploration here, but its legitimacy as a reflection of genuine community concern does.

Following the usual emotive and non-sequitur concerns linking the Adler to Port Arthur, the text goes on to state, “We, the people of Australia” in not one but two locations. 

However, there is absolutely nothing to prevent residents of Inner Mongolia being counted among “the people of Australia” who ostensibly support the petitioner’s demands.

I know this, because I signed it using a typically Mongolian name, email address and even a legitimate Inner Mongolian postcode i.e. 162800 (Heilongjiang).

Despite containing two digits more than any Australian postcode can boast, the petition’s systems thanked me for my support, advised me that by providing my email address I agreed to receive other campaign emails from Get-Up and Communityrun, and registered me as the petition’s 11,646th supporter.

It did likewise when I signed it "Rolf Harris", providing the email address rolf@hermajestyspleasure.co.uk and the London postcode WC2E 9RZ. 

So much for “We, the people of Australia”.

At issue also is the level of informed support the petition has garnered, even amongst actual Australians.

Samantha Lee, the face of Gun Control Australia and
many believe as much as 10% of its total membership

Take for instance the face of Gun Control Australian, Ms Samantha Lee, who was among those asked to speak at a recent press conference promoting the petition's 'success'. 

Others in attendance included David Shoebridge, firearms spokesperson for the political cult known as the Greens, and Labor MP Dr Hugh McDermott.

During her address to the assembled media, Ms Lee, doubtless a proud petition signatory herself, proceeded to relate a number of concerning ‘facts’ about the Adler, which together constituted grounds for deep community concern.

Every single one of those 'facts' was wrong!

Let me be very clear here. I do not mean Ms Lee's ‘facts’ were open to dispute or interpretation on irrelevant technicalities. I mean they were fundamentally wrong, in much the same way it is fundamentally wrong to suggest Buggies have gills and thrive in the home aquarium.

Ms Lee’s false claims include, but are not by any means restricted to, the following:

“The Adler has a magazine attached. No other lever-action firearms have a magazine attached.” 

False!  With a few rare and mostly antique exceptions, all lever-action firearms have a magazine attached.

“The Adler has a pistol grip!” (inferring it could be easily cut down and concealed.)

False!  The Adler has a pistol grip in precisely the same way a goldfish has a pistol grip i.e. not at all.

“This lever-action is quite advanced technology!”

False!  The lever-action has been about for some 130 years and available in Australia for at least 100 of those. Nor is the Adler the first and only lever-action shotgun available in Australia. Its current popularity is due almost exclusively to its affordability compared to similar lever-action shotguns already available and present in Australia since Adam played fullback for Jerusalem.

The point is, Ms Lee is a self-styled gun control advocate and lobbyist who either knows nothing about the item she seeks to have banned and is thus creating unwarranted community concern with her falsehoods, or she has the level of knowledge one expects of an responsible lobbyist, but is willing to deceive the public in order to contrive a desired outcome.

Either way, her statements were unprofessional, deceptive and highly unethical. The SSAA's response to Samantha Lee's various deceptions may be viewed here

Ms Lee is typical of the people who, via social media and other networks, have encouraged “the community” to sign an online petition, which itself provides next to no technical information about the Adler.

This begs the question, can the petition be considered the product of informed support or is it simply a reflection of fear resulting from ignorance and deception?

There appears to be a growing belief that democracy is a process by which a majority may stop or ban a thing by simple weight of ill-informed and irate numbers. Democracy is in fact a doctrine of tolerance and diversity, of respecting differing lifestyles, cultures and informed points of view.

Democracy is not a weapon by which we might rid ourselves of things that frighten us. Rather, it is a philosophy that strives to ensure the individual’s freedom to abstain from such things.

So who checks the integrity of these petitions to ensure they’re not fudged?

Who ensures that this petition, so proudly presented to Parliament by David Shoebridge, is an expression of the will of “We, the people of Australia” and not the people of Inner Mongolia?

How do decision-makers ensure that support for a cause was not garnered by way of false and misleading information and what does the scrutiny of many thousands of electronic petitions annually, cost the Australian taxpayer?

Finally, the reasonable expectations of the petition’s signatories would also appear dubious, as the following comment left by a petition signatory - one ‘Joanne D’ - clearly demonstrates:

“I was in hospital having my first child when Port Arthur massacre happened and I want to ensure it is never repeated.”

However one chooses to interpret Joanne D's impassioned comment, one thing is certain. The Adler lever-action shotgun was not the weapon responsible for either misadventure.

Anyway, I’ll get outaya way now...

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