New Zealand’s government is responding to the Christchurch attacks by pledging to ban all semiautomatic rifles.
The Newstalk ZB reports that Attorney General David Parker announced the pending ban on semiautomatic rifles during a vigil in Auckland. He couched the announcement in comments about “a dimming of enlightenment” in various places around the world.
The Guardian reports that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also plans to “focus on the ease with which legal weapons can be modified to become military-style assault rifles, which are more strictly controlled.”
Ardern notes that the gunman was a licensed gun owner who used five firearms in his attack. Two of the five were semiautomatic rifles, two were shotguns, and the fifth was a lever-action long gun.
Ardern will stress that the attacker’s guns were legally owned as a way of increasing public support for stricter gun control. ThinkProgress quotes her saying, “As soon as New Zealanders hear that someone was legally able to acquire, as I’m advised, those weapons and carry out this event, that will raise enormous questions with our gun laws, and that is why we will respond swiftly.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
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