More thoughts on the Iti verdict

Many on the left were expressing outrage yesterday at the 30 month sentence given to two of the Urerewa defendants for their illegal firearms convictions. Their view seemed to be that so long as Iti’s band didn’t actually kill anyone, then it was a minor offence not worthy of jail time.

A comment by the Judge got me wondering. The Judge commented that the context of the convictions was that Iti had effectively formed a militia. He also wryly noted that the defence contention that they were training to be security guards in Iraq was somewhat undermined by Iti’s rather portly condition.

Anyway I wondered what the reaction would have been if the activists were not a bunch of radical leftists, but instead was Kyle Chapman and a bunch of white supremacists. Imagine if Kyle and his “right wing resistance” loons had spent months stockpiling military-style weapons and molotov cocktails, and practicing how to use them. Also that Police recordings had them openly talking of killing the Prime Minister and other people in Government if their agenda was not agreed to.

I have a feeling that the very same people expressing outrage at the 30 month sentence for Iti, would be praising it, if the group had been Chapman and the neo-nazis.