By Aaron Kesel
The official narrative being pushed in the mainstream press on the tragic shootings at two crowded mosques in New Zealand is that 28-year-old Brenton Tarrant murdered 50 people and injured scores of others at the time of this report by himself. However, there are more questions than answers regarding the attack.
For instance, New Zealand authorities reported that after the incident four suspects were taken into custody -- three men and a woman. Adding that they had found and neutralized several IEDs (improvised explosive devices) on the vehicles stopped during the arrests.
MSN even wrote the IEDs were "attached to the attackers' vehicles," which was cited by Associated Press at the top of the article.
New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush said in a press conference reported by CNN that the vehicles authorities had stopped had contained IEDs strapped to them. "There were a number of IEDs attached to vehicles that we stopped," Bush said.
This means that the people arrested weren't just arrested for no reason and may have been involved despite the mum press failing to ask important questions.
Early reports of the event by mainstream press suggests there were multiple shooters from witnesses and police as shown in these tweets.
https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1106388850857766912
- spectatorindex
https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1106407956122263552
- RealSaavedra
This signifies one of two things: either this was a false flag attack, or there were more than one persons involved in this horrific act of murdering Muslims, and the New Zealand government has elected to declare the attack as a lone wolf gunman as a means of National Security.
In either case, it would be a cover-up, which we see visibly taking place with information being memory-holed, as Activist Post contributor Vin Armani noted on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/vinarmani/status/1106555854277541888
- vinarmani
Further, according to court documents reported by The New York Times, an 18-year-old boy, Daniel John Burrough of Christchurch, was also charged with “intent to excite hostility or ill-will.”
Last Friday during prayers multiple people were maimed, police said, on what Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described as "one of New Zealand's darkest days." The two shootings took place at Linwood mosque in Christchurch and Masjid Al-Noor mosque on Deans Avenue.
https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1106402134453612545
- NBCNews
If we take the two locations on Google Maps, Deans Ave and Linwood Ave located in Christchurch, New Zealand we will see that the two avenues are approximately 15-20 minutes away from each other - give or take - by car and 1 hour 30 minutes estimated by foot according to Google Maps.
This means that it would have been possible for the suspect Tarrant to have driven there, but unlikely if he walked there. With that said, it's totally feasible that he did the act on his own, but there are still the remaining questions of IEDs on multiple vehicles and the fact that there were 3 other individuals arrested and witnesses stating multiple shooters, as well as video showing potentially two shooters, which has now been memory-holed from the Internet, ZeroHedge reported.
Another odd key fact is Tarrant's travel history. In the years before Tarrant allegedly carried out the worst mass shooting in New Zealand's modern history, the Australian citizen claimed to have traveled abroad - visiting the Balkans, Western Europe, Pakistan, Turkey, Iceland, Poland, New Zealand, Argentina, Ukraine and even North Korea, SFGate reported.
In the 74-page manifesto allegedly published by Tarrant on social media, he acknowledges that those experiences were overwhelmingly positive. "The varied cultures of the world greeted me with warmth and compassion, and I very much enjoyed nearly every moment I spent with them," he wrote. (This manifesto has now been deleted everywhere.)
In his manifesto, Tarrant further described how he was first radicalized in Europe in 2017 when his views "dramatically changed" on immigration. On that trip, he traveled through France, Portugal, and elsewhere, he wrote, and was horrified by a truck attack in Stockholm around that time left a young girl dead. Presumably, we can make an educated guess that the truck attack referenced was Rakhmat Akilov, 40, an Uzbek, who had hijacked a truck and steered it down a busy pedestrianized street and into a crowd of shoppers during that same year.
Last year, Akilov was sentenced to life in prison and found guilty of terrorism and murder for the act of using a truck as a murderous weapon that killed five people and injured nearly a dozen others, NY Times reported.
The effects of the recent mosque massacre formed calls for more censorship online and for social media companies to filter out violent content like the shooting that was live streamed. We also see an increase in going after human rights.
We even see the demonizing of those looking for information.
"Do not share the video or you are part of this," a former FBI agent told CNN.
https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1106507851688787968
- CNN
In one case a man was arrested in the UK for showing support for the shooting; which, argue as you may, creating charges like "sending malicious communications" is dangerous for a free and open society. The fact is we don't know what was said, the 24-year-old man from Oldham's intention, and if he really proclaimed support or is just questioning the event by remaining skeptical.
The timing of this is interesting to say the least as this comes on the heels of ACTA 2 and a vote to pass an upload filter in Europe. Make of that what you will, but understand that the mainstream press is already pushing for an upload filter for content not regarding copyright by saying that social media companies couldn't remove the video fast enough.
In New Zealand possession of the video is punishable by up to 14 years in prison according to a tweet by freelance journalist Nick Monroe.
https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1106987664903933953
- nickmon1112
If all of the above is not enough there is even a growing movement that wants to bar the media from saying mass shooters' names after their despicable acts. However, that type of thinking is highly flawed. U.S joint chiefs of staff discussed faking mass shootings as a means to frame Cuba during Operation Northwoods. If we were to bar journalists from reporting the facts and being transparent about newsworthy events we would only foment conspiracy theories.
I am not saying NZ was a false flag attack. But the shooter in the video live streamed was clearly trained, and the mention of two shooters in the mainstream press and other information being memory-holed is suspect to a cover-up for whatever reason that may be.
This writer personally suspects and speculates this was a militant White Supremacist attack and that Tarrant had help. Tarrant flashed a White Power Symbol in Court according to the Guardian.
The truth is: who the hell knows what happened? As humans, when some tragic event happens we try to make sense out of a situation when there are more questions than answers. But it sure looks like more than one person was responsible for such a massive massacre that has been the proverbial "gunshot heard around the world."
In 1992, New Zealand tightened its gun laws to restrict access to semi-automatic rifles two years after a mentally disturbed man shot dead 13 people in the South Island town of Aramoana in the 1990s, MSN reported.
Six years later in 1996, a lone gunman used assault rifles to kill 35 people in the Australian state of Tasmania in what has infamously became known as the Tasmania shooting, Chicago Sun-Times reported.
In New Zealand's sister country Australia, following the massacre in 1996, a virtual ban on private ownership of semi-automatic rifles, and a government-funded firearms buyback program, cut the size of the country’s civilian stockpile by almost a third.
The measure was opposed by New Zealand who was represented at the 1996 meeting of Australian ministers, two weeks after the Tasmanian massacre. The council agreed that semi-automatic long arms would be banned except for use by licensed professional shooters.
New Zealand was the only country out of nine jurisdictions at the conference to reject the gun confiscation legislation despite the shooting in the early '90s.
Already New Zealand is stating that gun reform is coming following the massacre, and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has further said that there will be no opposition to that legislation like the U.S, The Washington Times reported.
It's important to note this author believes that people died; and even if this was a false-flag attack, throughout history governments have suggested killing innocent civilians from Gladio to Operation Northwoods. Please don't treat this as a crisis actor event because it's not. May those lost for mere worship rest in peace regardless if this was a false flag attack or multiple shooters were involved -- this was a tragedy. The New Zealand government has some questions to answer, though, given the complete whitewash of this narrative in a matter of hours of it happening.
Interestingly enough, New Zealand's laws for owning a firearm are "restrictive" — civilians are not allowed to possess handguns, military-style semi-automatic weapons or fully automatic weapons without a permit and a firearm license.
However, according to NZ law, a 16-year-old can apply for a standard firearms license after completing a safety course, which allows them to purchase and use a shotgun unsupervised.
In 2011, the Israeli secret service Mossad was accused of conducting an intelligence-gathering operation in New Zealand which was unearthed because of an earthquake in Christchurch that crushed a spy van and killed Ofer Mizrahi who had 5 passports at his time of death, Telegraph reported.
Stratfor employees even emailed each other on 2011-07-20 about the story, according to WikiLeaks GI Files.
In the gun debate, there is only one video that ever needs to be seen and that’s the U.S. Congressional hearing testimony of Suzanna Gratia Hupp, a survivor of the Luby’s shooting, also known as the Luby’s massacre.
On October 16, 1991, George Hennard drove his 1987 Ford Ranger pickup truck through the front window of a Luby’s Cafeteria at 1705 East Central Texas Expressway in Killeen, screaming “This is what Bell County has done to me!” then opened fire on the restaurant’s patrons and staff with a Glock 17 pistol and later a Ruger P89.
During the shooting, Hennard approached Suzanna Gratia Hupp and her parents. Hupp had actually brought a handgun to the Luby’s Cafeteria that day but had left it in her vehicle due to the laws enforced at the time, forbidding citizens from carrying firearms.
According to her testimony in favor of Missouri’s HB-1720 bill (a law to allow concealed carry), after she realized that her firearm was not in her purse but “a hundred feet away in her car,” her father charged at Hennard in an attempt to subdue him, only to be gunned down; a short time later, her mother was also shot and killed.
Hupp expressed regret for abiding by the law in question by leaving her firearm in her car, rather than keeping it on her person. She further stated that she didn’t blame the killer or the gun; she blamed her legislators because she couldn’t protect herself and her family.
I’ll leave you with a quote from a founding father of the U.S. Benjamin Franklin, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Someday you may be in Suzanna Gratia Hupp’s shoes wishing that you had a firearm to protect yourself or your family.
It's worth mentioning that the killer (or killers) was stopped by a man with a firearm. Although in a perfect world you shouldn't need to have a gun to protect yourself, that's not the type of society we now live in. A gun is a tool and it can be used for self-defense or aggression, it all depends on whose hand the weapon is in and the person's intention.
Aaron Kesel writes for Activist Post. Support us at Patreon. Follow us on Minds, Steemit, SoMee, BitChute, Facebook and Twitter. Ready for solutions? Subscribe to our premium newsletter Counter Markets.
Image credit: South China Morning Post/Associated Press