Weeks after mosque attacks that left 50 dead, New Zealand bans most semiautomatic weapons
By Shibani Mahtani Shibani Mahtani Reporter covering Southeast Asia Email Bio Follow April 10 at 6:20 AM New Zealand’s Parliament voted almost unanimously Wednesday for a law that bans most semiautomatic weapons, less than a month after 50 people were killed a by a white nationalist-inspired gunman who opened fire on two mosques in Christchurch.
The swift action — first taken just days after the worst attacks in New Zealand’s modern history and enacted into law weeks later — now makes the United States even more of an outlier with regard to large-capacity semiautomatic weapons. The United States has not taken such action even in the wake of deadly attacks by gunmen using such weapons, including in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, Las Vegas in 2017 and Parkland, Fla., last year.
“I could not fathom how weapons that could cause such destruction and large-scale death could have been obtained legally in this country,” she said.Firearms such as the AR-15 used by the gunman in the attacks will now be banned. Ardern said she took into account concerns from New Zealand’s farmers and large rural community, who live among rolling hills and on farmland across the country’s two islands.
In the wake of the attacks and in anticipation of the changes, some gun owners had already started handing their weapons in to police. Many said they were doing so in solidarity with the victims, including the 50 additional worshipers who were injured in the mosque attacks. Others, according to gun store owners, had started stockpiling these firearms before the ban went into effect.
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