NZ Politics

That's like a paranoid schizophrenic being given a gun so they can feel safe.

Actually no, that's like Pesistratus:

Around the year 561 BC, Herodotus writes how Pisistratus intentionally wounded himself and his mules, asking the Athenian people to provide bodyguards for protection and reminding them of his prior accomplishments, including the port capture of Nisaea. Pisistratus had driven his chariot into the agora or marketplace of Athens, claiming he had been wounded by his enemies outside of town, and thus, the people of Athens selected some of their men to function as a bodyguard, armed with clubs rather than spears, for him. Previously, he had assumed control of the Hyperakrioi, which was not an aristocratic group like the other two Athens factions, by promoting his democratic program and securing a mutual agreement with the members or demos of the faction. By obtaining support from this vast number of the poorer population and receiving the protection of bodyguards, he was able to overrun and seize the Acropolis as well as grasp the reins of the government. The Athenians were open to a tyranny similar to that under Solon, who previously had been offered the tyranny of Athens but declined, and in the early part of the Archaic Age, the rivalries among the aristocratic clans was fierce, making a single-ruler tyranny an attractive option, with the promise of possible stability and internal peace, and Pisistratus' ruse won him further prominence. With the Acropolis in his possession and with the support of his bodyguard, he declared himself tyrant.