We begin today’s roundup with Nicholas Kristof at The New York Times writing about New Zealand’s quick response on gun safety:
[W]hile it’s true that white supremacy is deadly and needs to be confronted — something our vote-obsessed president blindly ignores — without the weapons of mass murder, 50 New Zealand worshipers would still be alive; 17 Parkland, Fla., schoolchildren and staff members would still be alive; nine Charleston, S.C., churchgoers would still be alive; 11 Pittsburgh congregants would still be alive; 58 Las Vegas concertgoers would still be alive; 26 Newtown, Conn., first graders and adults would. …
Why can’t leaders in America learn from experience, the way leaders in other countries do? After a massacre in Australia in 1996, the government there took far-reaching action to tighten gun policy. In contrast, every day in America, another hundred people die from gun violence and 300 more are injured — and our president and Congress do nothing.
Jared Savage at The New Zealand Herald provides local perspective on the reforms, including the fact that New Zealand has its own incredibly powerful gun lobby, that owning a gun is not a right in New Zealand and that the reforms carve out exemptions for the concerns of the rural community:
Time after time, political momentum petered out and nothing happened.
This led to a loophole where anyone with a basic A-category licence could purchase a semi-automatic, such as an AR-15, and easily upgrade the firearm into a more dangerous MSSA weapon.
Anyone, including the Christchurch shooter who killed 50 innocent people and wounded nearly as many. [...]
The announcement by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern successfully balances the tension between making New Zealand safer, and the legitimate concerns of the rural community.
By instantly changing the Arms Act to reclassify any semi-automatic with a calibre greater than .22 as MSSA firearms, weapons such as the AR-15 now require E-category licences.
These licence endorsements are much more difficult to obtain.
Here’s a good primer on the New Zealand/USA similarities and differences in the gun safety debate.