WHEN IS INSIGHT ANYTHING BUT INSIGHTFUL

As it turns out, the simple answer to the question in the header is “when Jenny Brockie is host and moderator”.

Billed as a debate about gun control 20 years on from Port Arthur, last night's episode of the SBS program Insight was anything but a debate.

Former Prime Minister John Howard was sat before an adoring audience full of victims of shootings and anti-gun activists, all of whom rolled their eyes, tutted, groaned, shook their heads or leapt forward with angry emotive allegations each and every time an advocate for responsible firearms ownership opened his mouth.

Yes, there were pro-firearms advocates in the audience too, but what percentage they made up I cannot say. In any case, it’s irrelevant.

It’s irrelevant because an emotive power-imbalance ensured that this program could only ever be a platform for victim blaming, and by that I mean victims blaming anyone who attempted to present an alternative view.

No-one was at all upset when victims succumbed to their inner demons and began blaming other audience members for their plight. Any effort to put an alternative case was viewed as disrespectful to the poor victims.

Even Shooters, Fishers and Farmers’ Party MP Robert Brown’s heartfelt efforts to assure victims he was not insensitive to their pain, resulted in victims mumbling snide rebuttals while the audience groaned the equivalent of “Oh sure, like you give a shit.”

Claiming all firearms advocates are somehow responsible for the events at Port Arthur is exactly the same as claiming all Muslims are responsible for the events at the Lindt Cafe.

It is EXACTLY the same and rest assured no such extrapolation would go unchallenged by the Australian media, except when it comes to advocates of responsible firearms ownership.

Brockie failed to address the emotive power imbalance driven by parasitic pity and that resulted in the program degenerating into a one sided and often highly disrespectful ambush.

Firearms advocates were doomed from the moment filming began. They were effectively gagged, as any attempt to say what needed saying would have resulted in weeks of headlines about insensitive gun nuts upsetting the poor survivors.

But my criticism of the program is not restricted solely to Brockie and the anti-gun fraternity.

Once again, a rare opportunity afforded our advocates by the Insight program, while problematic and fraught as outlined above, was an opportunity lost.

So what, if anything, did we learn from the Insight fiasco?

For my money, we learned – or at least had reconfirmed – the futility of engaging with the media if the objective is to communicate another point of view.

It’s time to stop explaining our position only to be told it’s invalid. 

It’s time instead to start asking questions of our smug accusers and we could begin by asking the simple question  ‘how?’ and asking it frequently.

For many years we have attempted to communicate statistical facts in support of our concerns, which, no matter how sound, the public rejects out of hand.

The public is deaf to our point of view because it is invariably dependent upon the analysis of statistics that offer alternative explanations for the apparent absence of massacres since Port Arthur.

However, the public has absolutely no motivation to analyse statistics. There was a buy-back, tougher laws were introduced and voila, no more massacres. There’s your proof!

What we rarely do is challenge those who hold that opinion to tell us how a buyback and tighter gun laws resulted in a perfect unbroken 20 year record. 

We rarely if ever challenge them to explain the magic and that, in my view, is our undoing.

When people claim that by banning semi-automatic rifles Howard put an end to mass shootings, our response should not be, as it is at present, “No it didn’t!” 

Our response should be to ask “how exactly?”

It’s a trickier question than you might think, not least because it forces those espousing a theory to think about and explain it, while at present it is we who are forced to prove our alternative theories.

The response we get will probably be something akin to, “Are you stupid? Howard banned semi-automatics that’s how! There’s your proof!”

But as any scientist or statistician will tell you, correlation isn’t necessarily causation. The question must be repeated, “Yes, but how did that end massacres?”

About now you are likely to be accused of being provocative, perhaps even belligerent, but chances are even the likes of Jenny Brockie will be intrigued enough to ask you to explain what you mean and this is your chance.

There is no trick in this approach. You simply ask how reducing the speed at which a person can shoot people can completely terminate the desire to kill, for a period of 20 years, with not a single exception.

The next question takes the form of an explanation for the first.

Is it at all logical to suggest that reducing a killer’s capacity to kill 50 people per minute with a semi-automatic rifle, to a mere 25 people per minute with a bolt action rifle, results in an inconvenience so profound it turns the psychopath off the whole mass murder, blaze of glory thing?

Who among you believes psychopaths crunch the numbers before they head out on a spree?

Perhaps Martin Bryant has since revealed he’d decided that if he got to the Broad Arrow cafe only to discover it was unlikely he could kill 35 people in the first 5 minutes, he’d go fishing instead?

And the last question - Given that to qualify as a ‘massacre’ only 5 lives need to be taken, is it truly possible that in the two decades since Howard took semi-automatics off shooters, not so much as a single unhinged person has considered himself capable of getting 5 shots away before the snipers arrive?

If anyone believes that’s likely, even for a nanosecond, I have the solution to the drink-driving road toll.

All we need do is halve the alcohol content of all beverages. No one will think to drink double to get the same kick. They’ll just cry “drat, foiled again” and countless lives will be spared.

Shooters aren’t trying to fool people with feeble justifications and dodgy statistics. That job is handled admirably by government and the media.

Shooters would just like you to explain to them how your magic spells actually work. Given they’re the ones forced to pay for the wing of bat and eye of newt with their firearms, surely it’s a reasonable request?

Finally, on a very personal note...

During the Insight program, a very hostile woman - a victim of the Port Arthur massacre - looked Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party MP, Robert Brown in the eye and angrily demanded to know if he had ever been shot. 

The inference was clear. No scares, no valid opinion! 

Seldom, if ever, have I been more offended by the arrogant rudeness of the victim mentality.

I guess my feelings on that subject must have some weight, they must indeed be valid, for unlike Robert Brown, I am not a shooter but I have been shot. In fact shot and raped at age 10, by a serial killer who even today, languishes in jail.

Among the many things I learned from that experience, I include the following 'insights'... 

While being shot does not by definition diminish the victim's I.Q. or necessarily impede one's capasity for objective reasoning, it certainly doesn't sharpen those skills either.

While being a victim, or survivor (whatever) may be an explanation for the rudeness shown to someone who has shown you every courtesy, it can never be a justification or excuse. It's just an explanation. 

Failure to believe as you believe is not a crime, nor is it a further assault upon your damaged person and it was certainly no cause for the attack on Robert Brown.

Anyway, I'll get outaya way now...      

©gmallard2016 all rights reserved 

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