Australian police have charged a man who was seen allegedly carrying what seemed to be an AK-47 assault rifle – but which turned out to have a rather different purpose. Officers rushed into action after a flurry of emergency calls from north-west Sydney on Wednesday evening. A helicopter joined the search before CCTV led police to a parked car. A "gun" was recovered, but police soon realised it was in fact a bong - a device used to smoke marijuana. A 50-year-old man was later arrested in connection with the incident, police said. "A search of [a] vehicle by police allegedly located an imitation AK-47 assault rifle. With the assistance of Polair [helicopter], officers found a man in nearby grassland," a New South Wales Police statement said. The man was later charged with possession of an unauthorised firearm and intimidation. He has been remanded in custody and his case will be heard in April. Police will allege in court that the seized item was a bong, a water-filled filtration device used to smoke marijuana and other herbal substances, local media reported. NSW drugs laws state that it is an offence to "sell, supply or display for sale a bong… or the component parts, whether or not [it] is intended to be used to administer a prohibited drug". Designed as a cheap and reliable weapon for the Soviet army by Mikhail Kalashnikov in the 1940s, some 100 million actual AK-47s are estimated to have been manufactured over seven decades.
The moral of the story is when you're in Australia, don't pretend to shoot anyone with your finger. They take the use of illegal firearms seriously.
they openly sell bongs in shops in Australia, you just can't get caught in the streets with them. we've had cops search houses while smoking, no issue. We've had them drive past while smoking bongs on porches, no issue.
It's good guns are illegal, too many young punks with intent to kill and too many meth heads looking for houses to B&E for robbery's.
Yes indeed, disarm the law abiding people. Exactly how does that stop young punks with bad intent from committing crimes? You have just disarmed their prey, do they give you a cut?
We have plenty of groups the police pay off to take care of pedophiles and junkies that try robbing people. Vigilantes i'd guess you could say. I won't say too much but it does keep things peaceful. We don't have terror attacks, shootings in schools or too many random acts of violence anymore.
A very good system here in the USA past (just directly from cops) that saved the courts billions in todays dollars. A wood shampoo vs a whole court fiasco for ? $$$ & potential jail time? Who wouldn't pick the wood shampoo & which method do you think had a better recitisism (you spell it) rate?
Wood shampoo, it's easy to lock people away or shut something down but a business can run for a long to while cases amount until something is done which costs money, tax payer money, causes hysteria and could cause protests depending on the situation. I don't exactly know what you mean i haven't looked into this 'wood shampoo' case thing but i can if you'd like. This is just my opinion on your post. Can you link me to some information?
I live in Indiana and it's one of the strictest states in the U.S., it's legal to have a bong as long as there is no residue.
until recently I thought a cookie was something you ate. You don't want ME to do anything puter related for you. that's why I said to DIY, nothing personal.
Are you saying Australia had a problem with terror attacks and school shootings before you disarmed the citizens?
No, but intelligence services have caught terrorists and taken their weapons, caught people planning attacks in public places and stopped it most of the time.
I'm not sure what that has to do with disarming the public but apparently those terrorists planning attacks your intelligence services caught and disarmed didn't turn in their weapons as they were required to do. Criminals don't follow laws, that's why they're called criminals, eh? It's none of my business how you guys run your country but it sounds like by disarming the citizens, you solved a problem you didn't have.
I remember in the 80s-90s when the head shops in the city here would boot folks for using slang like “bong” or “weed”. I didn’t see if the guy in the article was actually acting like he had a weapon to scare people or just had a bong? The no bail seems harsh if he didn’t threaten to or hurt anybody. A cop buddy of mine pulled his gun on a guy one night because he had a lighter that looked like a pistol in front of him on a table.