Recall priorities
You may have heard about the recall of vehicles fitted with faulty airbags.
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The recall has now been running across the globe since 2008 and has involved over 50million vehicles at a cost of upwards of $5billion.
Faulty seals are believed to cause the airbag inflator to explode with too much force, shooting hot metal shrapnel inside the vehicle.
Worldwide, six deaths have been linked to the problem.
No doubt if your vehicle is on the recall list you'll get it checked because no-one wants to be killed by hot metal shrapnel, right?
Public safety is important, right?
Wrong!
Guns kill over 30,000 Americans every year, but nobody is planning a recall because you can't sue the manufacturers.
In the same period of time (2008-2015), five deaths have been linked to dodgy airbags in the US over 240,000 Americans were killed by hot metal shrapnel from guns.
And now we are unlucky enough to have a "festival" on the South Coast of NSW (HuntFest at Narooma) to promote the sale and use of guns.
Lucky for them they are not in the business of selling defective airbags - the government would soon put an end to that!
Doug Reckord, president
Far South Coast branch, NPA NSW
Blight on region
It’s time yet again for a blight to converge on our beautiful “Nature Coast” - that event known as “HuntFest”.
Greatly anticipated by Narooma business people as a much-needed source of income, yet abhorrent to the majority of Eurobodalla Shire residents, whose wishes to stop it were ignored by council.
Who would ever have imagined that one of the remaining pristine areas in Australia would be the yearly venue for hordes of gun-obsessed morons who gain pleasure and excitement from maiming and killing defenceless, living creatures, in the name of sport?
Who also seem intent on promoting a culture of hunting and gun ownership, along with the lack of feeling and compassion it encompasses, in the young, as being “normal”.
It is true that guns have played a major part in the rise of civilisation - both good and bad.
A gun used by an expert shooter is more humane than a trap, snare, bow, poison or so many other cruel ways of killing animals.
Competition shooting skills, at non-live targets in gun clubs should be enough satisfaction for most.
But for those Neanderthals still craving the “thrill of the kill”, a rigid test of marksmanship must be essential.
Maybe this is the requirement, but if so, how many times is the rule adhered to or monitored?
How many thousands of animals have been exposed to long, drawn-out suffering and death by an arrow or bullet fired by some heartless, inexperienced person calling themselves a “hunter”?
How can any decent human being look into the eyes of a living creature and bear to see those eyes go dim…gaining pleasure from ending a life?
Would they have the brains to imagine what the animal felt - or how they, themselves, would feel - being shot?
Do they assume that animals don’t feel, or is their mentality so lacking intelligence and imagination?
Would anyone shoot his or her own beloved dog?
Would the dog feel pain any less than the animal they aim to kill?
In my opinion, this gathering of people who take pride in hunting and killing for sport and pleasure is a travesty - a shameful reflection on our council.
Please, let this be the last HuntFest!
Diana Gillies
Moruya