Should the United States follow New Zealand and change their gun laws?

It would be very fair to say that New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s tact and composure following the Christchurch shooting has been admirable. Her unabashed condemnation of Islamophobia and the rise of nationalist politics restored hope and optimism after the tragedy shook the world. Yet her reactions were not merely verbal. Ardern swiftly took legislative action in an attempt to prevent a repetition of the attack at Christchurch, banning the sale and possession of “military-style semi-automatic and assault weapons” and introducing a buyback scheme for any current owners of such weapons, which is predicted to cost around 200 million USD. Whether these actions are justified is one thing. The speed and fervor of their passage is another.

Ardern’s bill proposing the ban on military-style weapons passed with a 119-1 majority in the New Zealand House of Representatives. Due to the nature of the New Zealand legislature, which, unlike many other Western systems including those of the United States and the United Kingdom, is unicameral, the bill became law after this vote. The lone dissenter was David Seymour, a member of New Zealand’s ACT Party, who opposed the bill on the grounds that its passing was rushed. Rather than disagreeing with the content of the law or the push for stronger gun laws, he argued that the bill was merely “an exercise in political theatre.” In this, he may have a point.

Americans on both sides of the aisle have not hesitated to draw broad judgement, with some accusing New Zealand of authoritarianism and others condemning American inaction in comparison

The last massacre involving a gun in New Zealand prior to Christchurch was in 1997. Yet the nation’s gun laws did not change in the timespan between the two attacks. While a change may have been justified in the aftermath of Christchurch, more time should have been spent assessing the cause of the attack and the magnitude of the law. For one, the terminology of the law is vague and extremely broad, allowing the government to prohibit all variety of different weapons. With the passage of the law, certain shotguns and rifles were reclassified as military-style, showing the term to be undefined and effectively all-encompassing. Giving more time for passage and consideration would have allowed concrete terms to be used, making the law more robust and effective.

On another note, some commentators have attempted to draw a comparison between New Zealand’s rapid passage of strict gun control measures to gun laws and gun violence in the United States. Americans on both sides of the aisle have not hesitated to draw broad judgement, with some accusing New Zealand of authoritarianism and others condemning American inaction in comparison. Such comparisons are inapt. For one thing, gun ownership quantities are vastly different between the two countries. Whereas only 1.2 million guns are owned by New Zealand’s population of almost 5 million, 320 million Americans own almost 400 million guns. Attempting a buy-back scheme or even a mass prohibition of gun sales in the United States would prove incredibly expensive as well as nearly impossible to complete successfully.

Though her tact and composure are applaudable, carrying that emotional response to legislative action is always dangerous

This is not to mention, of course, the constitutional protection of guns in the U.S. The American legislature was designed for slow and considered passage of laws, especially with regards to the Constitution, where guns are identified as an inalienable right. This is not the case in New Zealand, and so attempting to compare the two or draw judgement about American regulation of guns is not useful. Indeed, it serves only to fulfill the wishes of the shooter, who predicted that his shooting would lead to mass conflict regarding that very issue in the U.S.

Jacinda Ardern’s swift reaction may have been an overreach in this instance. Though her tact and composure are applaudable, carrying that emotional response to legislative action is always dangerous. Legislation passed in the heat of the moment often overreaches and is no replacement for carefully considered and well thought out laws. Of course, it cannot be ignored that the law has the support of both politicians in New Zealand as well as, according to a recent poll, the majority of New Zealand’s population. Such a democratic process cannot reasonably be called authoritarian. On the other hand, condemning the United States for not passing similar laws is also inappropriate and will only lead to further conflict.