New Zealand Does the Right Thing: Bans Assault Rifles and High Capacity Cartridges
by John Lawrence, March 21, 2019
After the horrific mass shooting, New Zealand has banned military style weapons in short order. Guess there's no NRA there! They followed the lead of Australia which did the same thing under similar circumstance. Now gun owners are required to turn in their guns. Authorities in Australia destroyed over a million guns. The US should follow suit and get these guns off the street and out of the hands of mass murderers. The licensing procedure for owning a gun should be harder than the licensing procedure for driving a car. It should consist of a thorough background check, a written and oral exam, a year's worth of classes and a demonstration of safe firearms usage. In short it should be harder to own and shoot a gun than it is to drive a car.
CNN reported:
"On 15 March our history changed forever. Now our laws will too. We are announcing action today on behalf of all New Zealanders to strengthen our gun laws and make our country a safer place," Ardern said at a press conference in the capital Wellington. The announcement came after the country's cabinet agreed to overhaul the law and ban military-style semi-automatics and assault rifles 72 hours after the Christchurch attacks. "Every semi-automatic weapon used in the terror attack on Friday will be banned," Ardern continued, adding that she hoped the law would be in place by April 11. "This legislation will be drafted and introduced in urgency."
An
estimated 1.2 million guns are in circulation in the country, according to New Zealand Police -- one for every three people. Ardern said the buyback scheme could cost between $100 million to $200 million. Later on Thursday, New Zealand Police announced all 50 bodies from the shootings had been identified. "This means that all victims are now able to be released to their families," Police Commissioner Mike Bush said in a statement. Arden said a "nationwide reflection" for the dead would be held on Friday -- one week after the attack. ...
In the wake of the reforms, mass shootings in Australia dropped to zero, gun suicides declined by an average of 4.8% per year, and gun-related homicides declined by an average of 5.5% per year. Philip Alpers, founding director of
GunPolicy.org and a University of Sydney academic, said the buyback "has a good chance of delivering the same life-saving public health benefit as that which followed the 1996 Australian buyback."
It has been well known that the reduction of guns in society reduces the number of suicides and homicides as the Australian statistics show. Now will the gun capital of the world - the US - do the same? It would be well within the bounds of the Second Amendment to institute strict gun laws in the US requiring all gun owners to pass strict background checks and licensing procedures while eliminating military style weapons. It would also be within the Second Amendment to limit the number of guns a person could own to, say, two. Let's hope people in the US come to their senses or the US will end up being the only society where mass shootings occur.
by Frank Thomas and John Lawrence in the San Diego Free Press
