Gang Patch Ban was the bullshit we always knew it was

Patch ban backfired, says mayor
Whanganui Mayor Annette Main says banning gang patches has done little to drive gang members away from the city but has blackened its reputation.

Former mayor Michael Laws vigorously campaigned to criminalise gang insignia.

Ms Main said she would have looked for a "quieter" way of removing patches from the streets.

"The gangs have not gone away. We just don't know who they are any more," she told The Dominion Post.

"Yes, we've taken the patches off them, but have we stopped people wanting to join them? Have we stopped them wanting to live in Whanganui and operate here?

"I don't believe we can say yes to that. It's certainly not what I'm seeing."

As predictable as a manufactured crises at the Hobbit, it turns out the Gang Patch Ban that was mindlessly driven through has had the exact opposite effect of banning gangs at all, so says the new Mayor who has managed to replace that racist right wing raw meat law and order clown Michael Laws.

And let's not forget that Political Hypocrisy party ACT in their drive to push for more public floggings social policy betrayed every principle they once had...

Hide defends gang-patch flip-flop
The Act Party has done a complete flip-flop and now supports a proposed ban on gang patches in Wanganui, abandoning its bedrock philosophy of personal freedom in favour of a new hardline law-and-order agenda.

...let's not forget what Rodney originally said about the gang patch ban...

At its first reading in April, Mr Hide told Parliament he would happily vote against the bill because it was against the principles of freedom. "Freedom is about the individual, and the measure of a free society is how we move to protect the minority from the majority. If the majority thinks that people wearing glasses should be locked up, that is not freedom or democracy," he said.

...once again, just like the manufactured crises at the Hobbit, the media helped whip up the uninformed kneejerks to get the public opinion on side and never look back to see if that was justified.

The Gang Ban Patch was never going to work.