The latest news:
New Zealand will ban military style semi-automatics and assault rifles and establish a nationwide buyback of the weapons in the wake of a terrorist attack on two mosques that left 50 people dead.
The ban takes immediate effect to prevent the stockpiling of weapons while the legislation is being drafted, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told reporters Thursday.
“I strongly believe that the vast majority of legitimate gun owners in New Zealand will understand that these moves are in the national interest, and will take these changes in their stride,” she said in a statement.
In sharp contrast with the U.S., where a string of gun massacres have failed to spur political action, Ardern’s announcement comes just days after the worst mass shooting in New Zealand’s modern history. On March 15, a lone gunman attacked Muslim worshippers during afternoon prayers in the South Island city of Christchurch, filming and live-streaming the attack to social media.
Police recovered two semi-automatic weapons, two shotguns and a lever-action firearm, which the attacker could own legally because he had a category-A gun license. A loophole in the law makes it easy to convert standard semi-automatics, which hold up to seven bullets, to military-style weapons by inserting an unregulated high-capacity magazine.
The buyback could cost the government between NZ$100 million and NZ$200 million ($140 million), Ardern said. Exemptions will be made for shotguns and 0.22 caliber rifles for farmers and hunters.
New Zealand’s response to the mosque shootings echoes that taken by Australia, which acted quickly to tighten gun laws after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre left 35 dead.
Prime Minister John Howard’s government pushed through legislation that banned certain semi-automatic weapons and introduced new licensing rules. A national firearms registry was established, and the government bought back and destroyed 640,000 civilian-owned guns.
Televised images from the time show truckloads of weapons being dumped.
After the reforms, the total number of homicides involving a firearm decreased by half, and the number of gun-related deaths also fell. The changes have been credited with all but ending mass shootings in the country
Amazing what can be accomplished when one lives in a civilized nation.
Exactly
Meanwhile, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/oct/02/america-mass-shootings-gun-violence
America is on a path of self-destruction.
America is an unhappy nation. America is sick.
The “greed” must stop.
Rome is burning
Rome is burning brightly
Just before the end
Though it claims it’s mighty
Downward is the trend
Rome is just a holder
For a time and space
Rome is simply older
Than the present place
Thoughts and prayers. We don’t have a gun problem we have a mental illness problem. Too many mentally ill Americans believe it is mental illness and not access to guns. We can measure each State and City’s rates of mental illness using the homicide and death by firearm statistics per 100k provided by the FBI.
I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic, but in any case, mental illness has very little to do with it. The vast majority of shooters are not mentally ill. People can be perfectly sane and still commit heinous acts. Evil is not a mental illness. Please don’t stigmatize the mentally ill – the vast majority are not dangerous and life is hard enough for them as it is.
The call for more resources for the mentally ill is a retreat from having restrictive gun laws. It is the GOP cop out so that nothing ever gets done to ban guns that have no reason to exist except to kill people.
I thought it was pretty clear that it is a mental disorder to believe that guns are not the problem. In fact, I would go one step further and ask why anyone would feel the need to possess weapons of such destructive force as a military-style assault weapon. That in itself is a sign that there is something seriously wrong with the individual. I am not the one stigmatizing the mentally ill,the gun lobby and the moronic right wing is.
Even if one asserts that most of those who commit mass shootings have a personality disorder of one kind or another. The notion that you could identify almost any of these people in advance of them using a military-style assault weapon is ludicrous and delusional. That there are tens of millions of Americans including editors of Newspapers and even well-meaning elected officials that repeat it endlessly is even more absurd.
The other part of their delusional belief system is; that the founding fathers intended the Second Amendment as a protection against tyranny. It, in fact, was a protection of slavery by preserving the right of states to maintain slave patrols or Militias under State control. Rather than the Federal Governments. Dominated at that time by the more populous North.
Patric Henery:
“If the country be invaded, a state may go to war, but cannot suppress [slave] insurrections [under this new Constitution]. If there should happen an insurrection of slaves, the country cannot be said to be invaded. They cannot, therefore, suppress it without the interposition of Congress…. Congress, and Congress only [under this new Constitution], can call forth the militia.”
If it were to protect oneself from the power of a tyrannical state? Then I assert my right to own a weapon suited for the task. I anxiously await after this repulsive SCOTUS rules that an Individual has the right to possess assault weapons (which was never ruled on in Heller;) to assert my right to own an F35 and a few cruise missiles.
As usual Edit button: Patric Henry
How can a nation buy “back” a weapon that it did not sell in the first place? And does the NZ government really think that criminals, and people who already own weapons that they might be using in criminal activities, are going to walk into police stations, and voluntarily turn in their working tools, for cash?
The NZ government is either naive or “looney tunes”!
No one—not even the opposition party—is opposed to the sweeping change in gun laws in NZ. It is overwhelmingly popular with the public. Even the leader of the NZ version of the NRA supports the proposed law. Who’s the Looney Tune here?
So let me answer your questions
1)They can because they will.
2) They believe it will work because it has been demonstrated to them in neighboring Australia that it has worked.
3)Petty Criminals are not the ones committing mass shootings. Criminals do not own an AR-15 style assault weapon to rob a grocery store with.
4) Criminals are more likely to have their homes and other places that they frequent searched due to non-firearm related issues and might be the first to rid themselves of a weapon they do not use that will land them in jail.
Such nonsense will never happen in the USA. Our right to self-defense, is guaranteed by the 2d amendment.
Charles: “Such nonsense will never happen in the USA. Our right to self-defense, is guaranteed by the 2d amendment.”
“Mass shootings in the US: there have been 1,624 in 1,870 days
No other developed nation comes close to the rate of US gun violence. Americans own an estimated 265m guns, more than one gun for every adult.
Data from the Gun Violence Archive reveals there is a mass shooting – defined as four or more people shot in one incident, not including the shooter – nine out of every 10 days on average.”
Apparently the fact that there have been 1,624 mass killings in almost as many days doesn’t mean anything. My Senator Todd Young [R-IN] was given $2,896,732 by the NRA. As long as this corruption is allowed to go unchecked, it is totally possible that the killings of innocent people will continue.
Imagine the outcry if Muslim fanatics had killed this often? Since it is now ordinary everyday business for people to die, nothing happens.
The meaning of the 2nd Amendment has been distorted by the NRA. They exist ONLY to make money for gun manufacturers. Obviously, they care nothing about the dead and seriously maimed. And, obviously you, Charles, also don’t care about the innocents who have died needlessly.
Muslim fanatics seized four aircraft on Sept 11, 2001. They used the aircraft to kill many thousands of innocent people. There has not been an outcry to ban aircraft.
Aircraft were not designed for murder; they are transportation vehicles, like automobiles and bicycles. Firearms, especially military assault weapons, are designed for the specific purpose of mass murder.
Charles: In the United States, since 1970, more Americans have died from guns (1.45 million, including murders, suicides and accidents) than died in all the wars in American history (1.4 million). More Americans die from guns every 10 weeks than died in the entire Afghanistan and Iraq wars combined, yet we still don’t have gun safety rules as rigorous as New Zealand’s even before the mosques were attacked.
This is acceptable to you. It isn’t to me.
All of the individuals killed (You claim 1.45 million) were killed by people using firearms. Without a human operator, a firearm is a useless piece of metal.
Of course our nation does not have firearms laws similar to NZ. We have a 2d amendment, and NZ does not.
Right, Charles, so the nutcases can just go right on killing and massacring our children and their co-workers. Nice world you defend.
There are different ways to reduce crime. Since you claim that “nutcases” commit crimes using firearms (I agree), how about identifying and treating the mentally ill? We can keep firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill, and others predisposed to committing crimes of violence.
(I have always favored background checks, to keep firearms away from felons and the mentally ill)
I just do not see how restricting the access to firearms by law-abiding citizens, will reduce crime, especially mass shootings. If someone can figure this one out, please explain it to me.
Charles: ” Since you claim that “nutcases” commit crimes using firearms (I agree), how about identifying and treating the mentally ill?”
As I stated earlier, this is a cop out by the GOP so that nothing ever gets done to control the excess of guns that permeate this society. We have the highest rate of gun deaths in the world, except for war torn countries, DUE to the excess and easy availability of guns. There is no reason to have assault weapons available when their only purpose is to kill people. Hunters never use them because they obliterate the animal.
I want control like the Japanese people have. There is absolutely no reason to have innocent people killed on a regular basis yet it has become an almost daily affair. We are not shocked when once again a mass murder occurs. It’s just another day and more people shot and wounded.
New Zealand has respect for its citizens. The US doesn’t.
This makes me ashamed of the US. Love of guns means more than innocent lives, even those of children. At least there are some countries in the world who do care about their citizens. Those are ones like Japan that already have tight control of guns or Australia and New Zealand that learned after having had ONE mass killing.
What is wrong with this country?????
Unfortunately, our government is unresponsive, uncaring, often ineffective and beholden to too many special interests. Our government only cares about its people during an election cycle.
Sanders: U.S. Must Ban Assault Weapons Like New Zealand
New Zealand banned all military-style semi-automatic guns and assault rifles less than a week after the deadly mosque terror attacks—and Bernie Sanders says the United States must follow that lead. The presidential hopeful said the U.S. should ban assault rifles by taking on the National Rifle Association. “This is what real action to stop gun violence looks like,” said Sanders, quoting a report on New Zealand’s ban. “We must follow New Zealand’s lead, take on the NRA and ban the sale and distribution of assault weapons in the United States.” The gun lobby quickly rejected the call. NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch said there was no need to change the law here, responding: “First, define ‘assault weapon.’ Words are important and certain laws come into play depending on which words are used, so define this. Secondly, the U.S. isn’t NZ. While they do not have an inalienable right to bear arms and to self defense, we do.” Fifty people died in the mosque shootings in Christchurch last Friday.
Read it at Axios
Bernie is the best! The man has guts and courage to take on the NRA and all the trembling NRA sycophants (sycophantus elephantus, also psychotic elephants (GOP)) who support that nefarious organization.
While they do not have an inalienable right to bear arms and to self defense, we do
Dana Loesch has a point
After all, it was none other than Thomas Jefferson who noted in the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, the pursuit of Happiness and The possession and use of high powered military style assault rifles
Then again, TJ said all men, so I guess that means New Zealanders also have the unalienable right to assault rifles..
So Loesch only has half a point.
And women have no unalienable right to assault rifles, of course
It’s not just the NRA and the cowered bought off-politicians, but also a great swath of the American public which loves guns more than the lives of their fellow humans. We have all heard the lame excuses for doing NOTHING: guns are just tools, inanimate objects; guns don’t kill, people do; the 2nd amendment, owning guns is a constitutional right; if guns are banned then only criminals will have guns; banning guns is socialism, communism; Hitler and Castro confiscated all the guns; I want my toys, wah, wah, wah, etc, ad nauseam, ad infinitum. When does this country ever get a soul, a brain?
One of New Zealand’s largest gun sellers supports the proposed ban, that could never happen in the US.
WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THIS GARBAGE IN SCHOOLS ABOUT? Good grief. Indiana gets worse everyday. This is the result of the ‘safety’ that schools are now undergoing to keep children and teachers away from the unlimited number of guns that DO KILL. I much prefer New Zealand’s version of how to protect citizens.
……………………..
Teachers in Monticello, IN Reportedly Shot ‘Execution Style’ With Pellets In Active Shooter Drill
Four teachers were led into a room, told to kneel and then were shot with a pellet gun “execution style” and injured during an active shooter training at an Indiana elementary school in January, according to the Indiana State Teachers Association.
The association revealed the violent training tactic, which took place at the Meadowlawn Elementary School in Monticello, while testifying in support of House Bill 1004, which addresses school safety, before the state’s Senate Education Committee on Wednesday.
In an interview with the Indianapolis Star published Thursday, two of the teachers injured during the fake execution said local law enforcement, which was facilitating the training, told them to kneel against a wall in a classroom. They said they were shot with plastic pellets without warning.
The teachers’ injuries in the training including welts and bleeding, the union said. About 30 teachers were involved in the training, according to BuzzFeed…
Article: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/teachers-shot-active-shooter-drill_n_5c93fc99e4b0a6329e142b5a
Insane