'violence begets violence'

The death toll from yesterday's mosque shootings in Christchurch NZ at present stands at 50 which is a total well in excess of the previous biggest NZ total of 13 at Aramoana near Dunedin in 1990 and the Australian biggest of 35 at Port Arthur near Hobart, in 1996.

It's clear the main perpetrator, a 28-y-o man originally from Australia styled his attack after Anders Breivik of Norway, although in this case went after the targets of his hate directly.

The front page of his manifesto states his main concerns, which ironically include 'law and order', but the problem is that the design includes the Schwarze Sonne (black sun) mosaic that the leaders of the SS in Nazi Germany installed on the floor of Wawelsburg castle.

The other problem for those opposed to Muslim immigrants because of their religion -- which has been responsible for numerous terrorist groups and thousands of terrorist attacks over the last two decades -- and not these people's race(es) is that they are are now going to be even more labeled anyway as 'racists' than they have been.

The style of yesterday's attacks particularly recalls those of the Muslim attacks on the Bataclan in Paris of November 2015 and the San Bernadino shootings a couple of weeks later.

While there probably were a few radicalised Muslims in Christchurch -- the Deans Ave mosque has been implicated before: see this post from 2014 - and this Australian article -- it's also probable that most of the congregations rejected terrorism.

And as we've also said before, vigilante actions against Muslims are likely to be counterproductive -- violence begets violence.  Hopefully, that won't be the case in NZ.