The latest US mass shooting in a school left 19 students and two teachers dead and provided an excellent opportunity for Jacinda Ardern to stamp her mark on yet another tragedy by appearing on US television to garner sympathy for her ineffective gun control laws.
“New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern says her country’s swift change to gun laws after the 2019 mass shooting in Christchurch was a “pragmatic” response, where “we saw something that wasn’t right and we acted on it”.
The prime minister was speaking as her visit to the United States coincided with the mass killing of 19 children at a school in Uvalde, Texas.
Ardern appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which was filmed shortly after the Uvalde shooting. “When I watch from afar and see events such as this today, it’s not as a politician. I see them just as a mother,” an emotional Ardern said. “I’m so sorry for what has happened here.”
The Guardian
According to the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ) research and report for the Royal Commission into the attack, their interpretation of “something that wasn’t right” was the ease with which the Christchurch killer obtained a NZ gun licence. They claim that had the police followed their own procedures for checking referees the gun licence would not have been issued to the killer, but this is not what Ardern is referring to.
Based on our history, New Zealand is very unlikely to experience a mass shooting in the next few years but the emotional public response is predictable and arguably irrational: to stop future shootings by reducing the number of guns in the licensed and law-abiding community.
“Tighter firearms laws decrease the risks (and costs) of firearms deaths and injuries, particularly from mass shootings. The evidence from 130 studies in 10 countries suggests that the implementation of laws restricting firearms (as we are now proposing in New Zealand) is associated with reductions in firearm deaths. In Australia, there were 13 fatal mass shootings from 1979-1996. After the gun law reforms in 1996 there were none until 2018. Researchers estimate that 16 mass shootings have been prevented in Australia by their law changes.”
2019 Gun Control NZ
Guns are an effective weapon for a mass murderer, along with bombs and vehicles, but sleep easy, fellow New Zealanders, because the likelihood of being shot by a stranger while out in public is very small indeed.
We do not have a history of mass public shootings by killers unknown to us.
We’ve only had two such mass killings – Aramoana in November 1990, where 13 people were shot dead, and the Christchurch mosque shootings in March 2019 which killed 51.
Other shootings, such as the Bain family, Mr Asia and the Crewe family murders are considered the result of soured relationships between the murderer and the victims, either family or gang relationships that ended badly.
But the NZ Government’s response to the mosque killings was the 2019 gun amnesty and buyback scheme which has not touched family, gang or criminal deaths.
It’s impossible to argue that the gun buyback scheme reduced the number of now illegal guns held by criminals and gangs and Nicole McKee doesn’t even try; calling the gun buyback an “absolute failure”.
“…nationally 60,297 firearms were handed in, 5630 firearms were modified, and 299,837 prohibited parts and magazines, were collected.
But McKee said they estimated there were more than 200,000 firearms in circulation that were now prohibited, with far fewer than that handed in.
“People are still finding out last minute they have in their possession an illegal firearm, and they didn’t know.”
Stuff
A murderous thug has a choice of weapons to kill but most NZ killers use no weapon at all.
NZ police statistics report that between 2008 and 2018 guns were responsible for just 12% of homicides. Stabbing and cutting weapons accounted for 23% but 48% of killings did not involve a weapon.
You have to ask why the emphasis is on beefing up NZ gun control law when our homicide statistics and history indicates very little risk of being shot by a stranger?
How effective was the 2019 gun law change when the number of gang-related shootings has not diminished since?
“A gang fuelled crime wave in Auckland that’s seen five drive-by shootings over the weekend and a further seven at homes in South Auckland overnight shows we need urgent action on gangs.”
The BFD