New Zealand set an example
Rich countries restricted possession of assault rifles after first shootings
Jacinda Ardern with the families of Christchurch victims in 2019. Archive
New Zealand announced sweeping gun control reforms after the 2019 massacre. Archive
Right-wing extremist Anders Breivik killed dozens of Labor Party members.
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The United States was shaken by the deadliest shooting in nearly a decade when, on May 24, an 18-year-old gunman entered an elementary school in Ovaldi, Texas, and killed 19 children and two teachers with a semi-automatic assault rifle.
The tragedy has reignited heated debates across the country about gun control, particularly regarding the availability of semi-automatic offensive weapons, which have been used in most mass shootings in the United States in recent years.
America is an exceptional country when it comes to gun control.
Mass shootings may lead to grief and anger in the United States, but they rarely lead to the tightening of gun controls, at the federal level.
“Other countries are seeing horrific mass shootings and killers using assault rifles, and they say, 'Never again,' and they mean it," said Cassandra Crivasi, deputy director of the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at Johns Hopkins University.
He continued, “In the United States, we say, it will never happen again.
But then we keep doing the same thing.”
property regulation
The United States has more firearms per capita than any other country in the world.
And unlike other countries that have experienced mass shootings, finally, gun ownership in America is rooted in the nation's history, popular culture, and basic identity.
But most Americans are in favor of at least regulating gun ownership, according to a Money Consult-Politico poll last year.
And 84% of voters support general background checks when buying guns.
Although mass shootings are not unique to the United States, the country has the highest gun fatality rate among wealthy nations, more than eight times that of Canada and nearly 100 times higher than the United Kingdom.
Each attack in the United States follows a similar path, with calls for greater gun control often meeting opposition from Republican lawmakers.
But in a number of other countries, notably New Zealand and Norway, a single mass shooting was enough to force widespread change.
Massacre in New Zealand
A week after 51 worshipers were shot dead at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March 2019, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced sweeping gun control reforms.
Although there was approximately one firearm for every four New Zealanders, at the time, guns were primarily thought of as tools used by farmers and hunters.
The shooting incident in Christchurch explained the risks.
"In short, every semi-automatic weapon, such as the one used in Friday's terrorist attack, will be banned in this country," Ardern said.
Gun owners had six months to sell their guns to the government under the new law, which cost more than $65 million.
As a result, more than 60,000 firearms and more than three times that number of materiel, including magazines, were recovered.
And in June 2020, New Zealand, with a population of five million, tightened gun laws further, incorporating a new firearms registry to track the purchase and sale of guns, shorter licenses for first-time license holders, and a ban on a variety of firearms.
Only time will tell us about the real impact of the legislation.
Firearms did indeed increase in 2020, but gun control advocates say this reflects police taking firearms crime more seriously.
proper response
New Zealand had previously considered imposing gun controls in 1996, after a mass shooting in neighboring Australia killed 35 people, prompting the government in Canberra to ban semi-automatic rifles.
The idea was abandoned due to pressure from powerful gun lobbies and the reluctance of politicians.
In light of the shooting in Ovaldi, Texas, Ardern expressed her shock and sympathy for the victims.
Of New Zealand's response to the 2019 attack, she said, "When we saw something like this happen, everyone never said 'again,' so we politicians had to respond to that."
British measures
• Legislative reform of gun laws became a public issue in the United Kingdom, after a gunman, in 1996, killed 16 schoolchildren and adults in the Scottish town of Dunblane with a pistol.
At the time, there were no specific regulations on handguns, and in Britain firearms were used primarily only on private lands for recreational use.
After pressure from the victims' families and the wider public, the UK government imposed a near-total ban on handguns within a year, which was later extended to all handguns.
As in New Zealand, the British government started a gun buyback programme, which was credited with keeping 20,000 guns out of circulation.
In the years since the law was amended in 1997, significantly fewer gun deaths were recorded;
The UK has not experienced a mass shooting since 1996.
Finally, unlike other countries that have experienced mass shootings, gun ownership in America is rooted in the nation's history, popular culture, and primary identity.
60,000
• 1,000 firearms recovered in New Zealand after the Christchurch attack in 2019.
norwegian model
• In Norway, firearms laws were considered fairly strong;
Although semi-automatic and hunting rifles have different levels of ownership;
Even before the double terrorist attack, in July 2011 that left 77 people dead, right-wing extremist Anders Breivik, disguised as a police officer, detonated a car bomb in Oslo killing eight people, then headed to Utoya Island, the site of a youth summer camp , supervised by the Labor Party.
Breivik initially planned to target former Labor Prime Minister Gro Brundtland, whom he blamed for allowing Muslims to settle in Norway, but her appearance at the event was cancelled.
Instead, he shot 69 people, using a semi-automatic rifle and a Klock pistol, in the country's deadliest domestic attack since World War II.
At the time, gun owners in Norway had to obtain a license, be over the age of 18, and provide a "compelling" reason for ownership.
The killer obtained his guns legally through hunting licenses and membership in a shooting club.
In the United States, some gun owners have used the tragedy as evidence that stricter gun laws were ineffective in preventing mass shootings.
However, the rate of murder by firearm in the United States is currently about 12 times higher than in Norway.
Experts say a combination of gun control, education and culture contributes to a better record for the Scandinavian nation.
And unlike New Zealand, the push for more gun control after the mass shootings has been slow to produce legislative results.
Although an independent commission recommended tightening gun ownership rules in 2011, the Norwegian parliament did not pass a ban on semi-automatic rifles until 2018, which took another two years to implement.
During that period, a gunman stormed a mosque and opened fire, wounding a person.
Strict measures
• Australia had its own appreciation for armed violence, in 1996, when a gunman killed 35 people with a semi-automatic rifle, in Port Arthur, Tasmania.
Within two weeks, both the federal government and state lawmakers backed a ban on semi-automatic rifles and other firearms.
The government purchased at least 650,000 offensive weapons and melted them in factories;
Lawmakers also imposed licenses to demonstrate a "real need" to own guns, and firearms safety training courses.
The subsequent mass shooting, in which a gunman killed two students with different types of pistols, at a Melbourne university, in 2002, led to further restrictions, consisting of heavier punishment for misuse of pistols, tighter gun laws, and restrictions on the types of guns used. It is owned by civilians.
Since 1997, the proportion of Australians with a license to carry a gun has almost halved, and the firearm homicide rate has dropped dramatically.
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