By Ben Vidgen DEADLINE

In the wake of the Christchurch Mosque shooting it has being established the shooter, Brent Tarrant, was based in Dunedin and belonged to the Bruce Rifle Range.

We still have yet to establish were Tarrant purchased his fire arms. Prime Minister Jacinda Adern has confirmed the shooter had a valid gun license and his weapons appear to have being purchased legally.

Meanwhile we learn a hunting guide and former soldier Pete Breidahl says he raised concerns with police about the  South Otago gun club where the alleged mosque terror gunman practiced shooting.

Pete Breidahl says he saw members of the Bruce Rifle Club with the confederate flag – a symbol associated at times with white nationalism – but to fair viewed in New Zealand working class circles as a symbol of Jack Daniels, AC/DC and general petrol headness. Briedal said the club was talking with “strong feelings” about the right to carry arms, as well as complaining that New Zealand’s relaxed stance on refugees would lead to terror attacks”*1.

Yellow shirts bad – globalism good – Yeah right.

Breidahl says he saw certain members of the Bruce Rifle Club with Confederate flags – a symbol associated with white supremacy – wearing camouflage clothing with military webbing and insignia, while talking about “zombie apocalypses” and “homicidal fantasies”. Breidahl claims to have met Tarrant – “he was not right” – but was so concerned about other members of the Bruce Rifle Club that he visited the local police Arms Officer.  Arms Officers conduct background checks, approve firearm storage, as well as safety training for gun owners and can revoke licenses.

The club rejects this claim vice-president Scott Williams telling the ODT “I think we’re feeling bit stunned and shocked and a bit betrayed perhaps, that we’ve had this person in our club who has ended up doing these horrible things.”

To date the police have never confirmed or denied that such a complaint was made and Bredial is quite non specific but who and what exactly was said and frames his remark in way that cast an ill light without cross into the realm of given a precise context to what was said or that might be deemed defamatory. 

Pete own website focused on his making a film career which includes a search for “giants” in the Solomons.  Another site states Pete worked for private security firms but he “wont go into details”.

In 2011 Peter was part of military assistance project which included solider and a “Doc Ranger” “who did not want to be named”  and was their to assess the effectiveness of NZ Army Navy surveillance methods. Pete at this point is listed as game warden but is listed at Pvt which suggest he was serving as territorial solider at this time. The Kiwi contingent, was led by Major Bede Fahey, “who is normally employed by the NZ Police”, to carry out patrols, liaise with local people, assist police and help with security at the prison.

http://www.legitimatefilms.com.au/our-films

To be fair one thing lending credence to Pete take on club with too much testosterone, what ever their politics may or may not be, is a youtube clip, since taken, down shows the clubs “jungle walk”, a shooting target exercise depicting menacing foes with grimaces and charging weapons.

And when Dunedin was subject to a threat of  shooting massacre at the University in 2015 the gun clubs and the gun store would have being a good place to begin looking for a potential sources. The threat, made on message board 4chan in 2015, included a picture of a pistol and warned people against ‘‘coming to Otago University on Wednesday”, leading to a police presence at the university on the day.

The threat was made shortly after a shooting at a community college in the US by a shooter who posted on 4chan before announcing that he would be live-messaging his actions again on Thursday morning.

The Dunedin post referred to mass shootings at Dunedin campus, and was traced to a server belonging to a telecommunications company based in Medellin, Colombia. Despite requests for the IP address and other data that could identify the user, the firm did not release information to police. So the Dunedin police determined that is all they could do and went back to eating donuts another day of cop out and cover up where no one ever think corruption can take place so no one ever looks to quote Stoned On Duty one of the many expose on Dunedin boys in blue.

Tarant moved to Dunedin in 2017. It remain unknown at what point he picked Dunedin as his original target but it does remains a clue that the shooting at the Mosque was avoidable and there were signs -if any one had bothered to pay attention. We do know Tarant was visited 4chan the site where the Oregon shooter posted his pre-massacre posts.

Tarrant was not in Dunedin in until 2017 but even had the police acted in 2015 by checking with local gun clubs they might have instead prevented the circumstances which facilitated the theft pistols and semi automatic weapons by gangs in 2016.  And a clean up of the gun clubs apparently toxic environment may have meant Tarant present was detected earlier.

Meanwhile we still no very little about Tarrant associates and their connection in turn. How he met them what part they played and who they are connected to in turn.

Either way the event, described below, again confirms Pete Breidahl  central claims that in some case there are people at some of gun clubs who appear fairly dysfunctional. That there is a lack of genuine scrutiny from local arms officers of these clubs, fitting of institute with access to deadly weapons, weapon traders, and attractive to those with interest in guns not for obtaining food or sport but their less appealing aspects,

Scott Alexander Trotter a member of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club masterminded a  the break-in of a Maitland St address on October 25 owned by a pistol club member Trotter then contacted members of the Hells Angels and Bandidos gangs after the burglary.  He offered them 23 pistols, four military-style semi-automatic rifles, a shotgun and 25,000 rounds of ammunition.

Trotter and Raymond Mosley posed as glaziers to gain entry to the house after Trotter’s girlfriend, an escort at Venus massage parlour, who had being hired by the Pistol Club president and owned the premise on Man St, had alerted them to the potential haul after the club president had showed off his arsenal to the Mosley girl friend and another escort also present.

They two removed a glass panel from a door and once inside found two unlocked safes in the bedrooms containing the arsenal. Once Trotter had the firearms, he used his contacts in the criminal underworld to find buyers. The Judge in the case Judge Crosbie noted “the market was very quick to respond, which is something the community should be concerned about,”

Mosley received eighteen months for each gun offense. To be served – Concurrently. A total of four years. Oddly he was not sentenced for his burglary charge which has a maximum option of ten years. Kiwiblog at the time noted “There were fourteen gun charges – each with a potential penalty of four years. So fifty six years right there. If the Judge cared to use the option. But no. Those fifty six years become eighteen months.”

The judge also commend the police for swift action and yet an inspection of the club earlier may have detected not just the president lax attitude to security but a mind set that needed to show off guns to working like a immature school boy showing off to impress girls.  That’s with standing, that what was not printed in the media, was how the burglars also took an address book with all the other club members details in and that members have since then experienced several burglaries by gang members looking for weapons who enter premises by breaking window and gaining entry according to a local glazier . At least one case can be confirmed here

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/burglar-stay-jail-after-appeal-rejected

An the critic of dereliction of duty is valid based on a long history of police not acting when ever red flag were present in many many sad cases. 

David Gray: For example the Dunedin 1990 mass shooter by David Gray shot 13 people in the quiet sea side suburb of Aramoana. 

A bookseller whose employee had been threatened by Gray 10 months earlier warned police that he had a screw loose. A constable had even described him as not the full packet of biscuits” after he threatened to burn down a dairy because his pie was cold. Police admitted this what they didn’t tell the public, was that the employee refused to lay charges because he feared that Gray would come back and shoot him dead and that Police couldn’t protect him. He was right. Grey had even come to the attention of Mental health but a follow up was never done. Not enough resources no one could be bothered to do a follow up.

David Gray was never licensed under the 1983 Arms Act, but actually under the previous legislation. Police vetted all existing firearms licence owners who wanted to transfer to the new “Lifetime’s Licence” beginning 1983. This was done by surname groups, but Police hierarchy considered that such vetting of reapplying owners was a waste of their limited Police resources and  it was stopped before they got to “G” for Gray.

But I’m being unfair Gray was one off?

2009 Jan Molinaar holes up with an arsenal of weapons after killing a policeman he was described as “a total Rambo” by his own family, was known to police due to his extensive criminal history.  He had not been licensed to own a firearm since the new 1983 Arms Act was imposed. That legislation required a potential gun owner demonstrate they were “fit and proper person” to own a firearm, (i.e. mentally “fit” and “proper” by way of not having a criminal record or associations) Molinaar could not have passed that test, so he simply held on an existing stock of firearms he had regardless. Police claim they lacked the resources to follow this up − the result one of their own was killed 25 years later because the police failed to “get around to it”, did not think it was worth checking up on Molinaar,a violent high−profile offender who’d been under their surveillance for weeks existing weapons hoard.

Late last year police admitted they did not have an accurate picture of the black market arms scene (The acting Commissioner of Police Peter Doone having told me that gang did not have access to military assault weapons (despite me pointing him out that my source who said other wise included academic Greg Newbold, Custom Intelligence Officer Tony Spillane and John Anderson, detective Sergeant Daryl Brassier Organised Crime Unit and former Police Commissioner Peter Doone).

Why?

Because in their own words they were failing to record incidents so of course had no idea of which rock to look under.

An absence of enforcing fire arms laws, or paying attention when red flags do appear, seems more of the issue than a need to arms police or create legislation that impinges upon civil liberties and way of life with more controls.

Since 9/11 the US has spent more then 2.8 million on Counter Terrorism. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks have killed 100 people in the United States, or about six per year.  In comparison, the opium overdoses in the United States, in the wake of sending solider to the opium field of Afghanistan,  to hunt down terrorists, led to more than 20,000 deaths in the United States during 2016 alone.

The same will be true in New Zealand where drug rehabilitation is almost non existence despite the scourge of meth which if not fixed has more likely hood of fueling further gun related violence than any law has of preventing it and will result in more deaths even if those death go unnoticed as they don’t fit the media sound bytes criteria.

This is of course largely due to a complete absence of willingness to formulate a strategy be it drugs, guns, gangs, terrorism, money laundering,  where the proverbial ambulance is at the top of the hill not the bottom as I pointed out in my book in 2017 and as I have banged my head against a brick wall on the woeful handing of the gun violence in NZ for over 20 years.

For 20 years I watched and written on the private arsenals in the hands of those who had no legitimate use get deadlier and deadlier. Further as their guns became powerful they were matched by emergence of ammunition stockpile were once guns in the hands of the mad and the bad were their for showing off purposes alone.

First we ignored the gun issue, then we be little those who tried to warn us.

before finally dealing with the issue by going not to the source, addressing the core issues, or by seeing existing policies and strategies actually got implemented and monitored, and that strategy was based on actual intelligence and not just political agenda

*1. The current narrative of neo-liberalism where the morally ethical and humane response to offering refugee in need is used cynically instead as the Trojan Horse in which to lower wages via manufacturing a cheap labour source, change a nation social fabric including its attention to environmental and social issue by alter voting demographics. Or even to alter the definition of ‘human rights’ in a manner more compatible to corporate based goals while ultimately establishing nothing less than a human derivatives market, which treats refugee as pawns to literally be traded in relation to their perceived earning calculated for trading purposes, as figure based on average life spans. Just some of the concern of students of global constitutional and international law who state what really lies behind policies such as the UN Global Migration Pact, is a move to create a monopoly over food water and power. Until this weeks shooting, National opposed it on the grounds it eroded our national sovereignty, but has since pulled it on line petition against the pact down.

Previously National Simon Bridges had stated “while not binding, the Compact could restrict the ability of future governments to set immigration and foreign policy, and to decide on which migrants are welcome and which aren’t. While National is the party most open to immigration, we cannot accept this”.

This is in addition to recent debate on foreign influence in the electoral process.

This includes national security issues where additional migrant populations such as the Chinese diaspora may support a candidate who in reality take their orders not from the political party but the government of their birth state. 

One of the very issues which an inquiry into the electoral process critical to the 20/20 New Zealand General Elections planned to review – an issue which was gaining increasing media attention until this week tragedy. One of the repeat shots fired in the wake of the shooting that any critic of immigration must equal racist opposition alone and not to do with increasing global ambition of industry and industrial nations like China who simultaneously driving its Beltway Road’s under the pretext of sustainability and the UN Agenda 2030 program for water privatisastion and food Monopoly’s as pushed by it’s corporate allied such as Bayer, Monsanto, Nestle’s, who like.  One of the objectives of the compact — No. 17 — includes a call to eliminate “all forms of discrimination and promote evidence-based public discourse to shape perceptions of migration.” Any thing that can mark opposition to the UN’s neoliberal strategy appear as in favor of racist or xenophobic polices (as opposed to simply opposing totalitarianism) will be deemed advantageous to its supporters who are using the compact and its approved censorship { to be fair it believes in education of it ideal by independent journalist it just does not define what constitute independent journalism and who will pay for their endorsed form of public relations) as the first strike weapon which will allow it to get down to the serious business of formulating monopolies of natural resources and political power and implementing policy that is by definition fascist in action regardless of the language it wrapped in.