{"id":178051,"date":"2019-03-21T19:12:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-22T00:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/03\/21\/new-zealand-fixes-things\/"},"modified":"2019-03-21T19:12:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T00:12:00","slug":"new-zealand-fixes-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/03\/21\/new-zealand-fixes-things\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand Fixes Things"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In less than a week, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/asia_pacific\/first-victims-of-christchurch-shootings-laid-to-rest-as-police-say-gunman-had-planned-another-attack\/2019\/03\/20\/fa76af1e-4ad6-11e9-b871-978e5c757325_story.html\">they have banned semi-auto weapons<\/a>, less than a week after the Christchurch massacre:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">New Zealand has banned military-style semiautomatic weapons and assault rifles, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Thursday, just six days after attacks on two mosques in Christchurch that left 50 people dead.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">A buyback program will be launched to take existing weapons out of circulation, and gun owners who do not comply will be subject to fines, she said.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cOn 15 March, our history changed forever. Now, our laws will, too,\u201d Ardern said. \u201cWe are announcing action today on behalf of all New Zealanders to strengthen our gun laws and make our country a safer place.\u201d<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The gunman who attacked the Al Noor and Linwood mosques here Friday used AR-15 rifles in the worst mass shooting New Zealand has ever seen. In addition to the 50 killed, 40 people were injured.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">New Zealand has a tradition of hunting and shooting as sport, but there is no legal provision to own weapons for self-defense.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Ardern has said there is no reason for New Zealanders to own these kinds of weapons, and there is broad consensus on that argument.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The center-right opposition National Party supported the ban. Its leader, Simon Bridges, said it was \u201cimperative in the national interest to keep New Zealanders safe.\u201d<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The changes mean that the weapons will now be removed from circulation.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">After the return period has passed, those who continue to own them will face a $2,700 fine or up to three years imprisonment.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is what it looks like when you don&#8217;t have an ammosexual lobby poisoning any discussion of gun reform like the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Good on them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In less than a week, they have banned semi-auto weapons, less than a week after the Christchurch massacre: New Zealand has banned military-style semiautomatic weapons and assault rifles, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Thursday, just six days after attacks on two mosques in Christchurch that left 50 people dead.A buyback program will be launched to &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[474,531,374],"class_list":["post-178051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-gun-laws","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178051"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}