Photographer guilty of “disorderly behaviour causing offense” for street photo

[mugent]

I believe the issues to be rooted in deep socio-economic, dysfunctional atmospheres, and otherwise similar concerns.

I agree totally, but this issues are either extremely difficult or impossible to fix, in the short term anyway, but surely the US needs to stop people killing each other, and children killing themselves accidentally while it figures out how to fix these problems?

but ill take the risk if it means civilians retain reasonable control and their civil liberties. This isn't something that we should just give up in the name of some kind of phantom "safety."

You may take that risk, fair enough, but is it fair that thousands of people are killed for you to take that risk?
It's not phantom, hundreds of children are killed every year because their neighbour/parent/grandparent/friend couldn't figure out that a gun needs to be locked away.
If guns were only available to sensible, law abiding people, and not idiots, great, but I'm not sure you can legislate for that.

Is it fair that you don't get to have a gun because others can't be trusted with them? No of course it isn't, but if it saves lives then it needs to be done until we can find a fairer way.
I'd rather a US citizen was crying over 'loss of liberty' than crying over a dead child, it's maybe a sensationalist way of putting it, but it's happening in the US several times a day.

I don't agree with Gun control in principle, but I agree in practice.

 

[Sparrow]

Australians and Americans talking about gun control.... this is gonna get ugly. Hold on folks, I'm gonna go get some pop corn 😀

.... yep, so much to misunderstand 😀 ... I expect someone will be along to spoile it in a couple of hours

 

[progie]

I don't even own a gun. I guess you missed the part where we're basically talking about principle.

See, it's threads like these that actually do reveal a general difference in cultural thinking between individuals from one country to another. Some of you guys seem completely content to let the government decide what choices you're allowed to make.

Has AUS completely banned cigarettes yet?

I'm sorry I brought up up the gun word. This is what I was referring to. I don't own a gun either, but I would be be angry if the government told me I couldn't have one, or a camera, or a ....

 

[mfunnell]

I really, really don't want to buy into an argument about guns. Especially not an Australian vs American argument about guns. But it appears to be happening and feel I should say something, despite knowing it will probably be futile.

I don't have any particular love of firearms, nor any particular dislike of them aside from the fact that they are dangerous. I've used firearms as part of earning a living: while in the military and while working on rural properties. I owned a firearm (of a kind now banned in Australia) when my job was to shoot feral pests (mainly pigs). I sold the thing as quickly as I could after I stopped doing that - I needed the money, and didn't want to bear the responsibility, or suffer the danger, of having a firearm around once I no longer needed it.

When Australia's current gun laws were introduced I thought they were pretty dumb. Not that I thought we shouldn't tighten restrictions; it was just that the particular laws seemed especially stupid, to have been drafted by people with no actual knowledge of firearms then rushed through Parliament in too much of a hurry. I've since had to admit that I was wrong. Not about technical defects in the laws (which remain) but about their overall effects. There has been not one mass shooting in Australia since those laws were passed. Before the laws were passed they happened infrequently, but still depressingly and horribly often. Enough time has passed that those laws' effect can be assessed and the conclusion is pretty obvious - they have been entirely successful.

That having been said, similar laws simply could not work in the USA. While I'll concede the possibility I might be wrong about this (I've obviously been wrong before) I truly don't think I am mistaken in this assessment. The US is different from Australia in many, many different ways - even just regarding the possibilities for gun control. There are far more firearms circulating in the US than there were in Australia before the laws referenced above were passed. Australia is a highly urbanised society (legends of "the bush" notwithstanding) whereas the US has much more of their population in rural, regional, small town and small city areas. A far larger proportion of the US population has an actual need for firearms (for many purposes) and a use for them in passtimes such as hunting (which has long cultural traditions and real practical value to many Americans).

Whatever America does about gun control (and I believe they need to do something, and urgently so) they cannot do what we've done here. Picking fights about this is pointless and stupid, from either "side". What we've done cannot suit America, but it does suit us. Americans yelling at us because we've done something that cannot work in the US is silly. Australians yelling (or just snarking) at Americans about this, when what we have done cannot possibly work there, is stupid.

So just stop it, would you? Please.

I know that was futile, but feel I had to say it.

...Mike

 

[The Expanding Man]

A little lesson in Australian gun control:

In response to the Port Arthur Massacre, our Federal Government bought back all automatic and semi automatic high calibre firearms. The government paid a fair market price.

In Port Arthur, one lunatic with semi automatic high powered firearms killed 37 tourists. The casualty number was so high precisely because he used semi automatic weapons.

Currently in Australia, so long as you don't have a serious criminal record and you aren't insane, you can get a license to own a small rifle. You need some connection to either hunting or pest eradication on farms.

You can have hand guns for sports shooting, but they stay at your gun club at all times.

Australia has not had any further mass shootings since Port Arthur, and our general homicide rate has dropped 10% since the gun buy back.

Going back to the OP, if you read the comments to the Reddit link, a person claiming to be the photographer in question says he was just taking a street shot of the back of a woman with his iPhone.

Another commentator claims she was there, and other women were complaining that he was taking photos of their legs. Maybe the case is no more than a Magistrate believing these witnesses and not the photographer?

 

[_mark__]

If someone nicked my phone in the street I'd press for a street robbery charge. rules about photography in the UK are very clear and unlikely to be changed anytime soon. Good manners and common sense go a long way.

 

[progie]

I hope we agree that a civilization needs rules. A government is better suited to make useful rules for ALL people than individuals.

I certainly don't agree with that, but if a gun ban was passed, I think all law abiding citizens should turn in their guns (after the criminals do)😀