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March 23, 2019

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Calm consideration needed in wake of New Zealand mosque attacks

LAST Friday I was on my way to work when a friend sent me a message in WeChat: “Reported shooting in New Zealand.”

It sounded a bit strange, and I fobbed it off as one of those random altercations that amount to nothing. It had to be.

What you’ve heard about New Zealand is true — it’s a quiet, safe, beautiful and boring place at the bottom of the planet. A place where many of the world’s troubles fail to arrive.

Then I got a call from a friend back home. That’s when I realized this was something different.

From that moment on I was glued to the news for the entire day, watching as the death toll rose and rose and rose. Until now, 50 people have died since a lone gunman entered two mosques in Christchurch — the city that was levelled by a series of huge earthquakes back in 2011 — and opened fire during Friday prayers.

Many Kiwis say that this heinous terrorist attack marked the day New Zealand lost its innocence. I think that’s a bit over the top.

Despite safety, New Zealand has plenty of guns

Despite New Zealand’s level of safety, guns are not as rare as you might think. For a country with a population of just 4.8 million, there are an estimated 1.5 million guns. New Zealanders own more guns than Australians, Brits and Canadians. But homicides and murders using firearms are extremely low, usually not reaching 10 per year. The single weapon most used in New Zealand murders and homicides is the knife. That doesn’t mean we haven’t had mass shootings before, though.

The last time was more than 20 years ago, when six people were murdered in Raurimu. A few years before that was our worst mass murder of the time, known today as the Aramoana Massacre. On November 13, 1990, that small seaside town with a population of just a couple of hundred became the site of a shooting spree that left 14 dead — the youngest was just 6 years old.

Fast, sweeping changes

Two years after the Aramoana Massacre, New Zealand’s government amended firearm laws and tightened controls. Things are happening much quicker after last week’s atrocity.

In fact, my country’s democracy is moving at a pace that I haven’t really witnessed before. Usually the process involved in changing and creating laws is marked with politics, debates and the inevitable grandstanding. After all, that’s the style of our Westminster democracy, where every decision goes through rigorous debate and the Opposition is a valued and important component, designed to be a thorn in the side of the government for the entire term.

This time, people seem to be much more united.

Less than a week after the attack, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced a ban on semi-automatic and assault rifles with immediate effect. “This is what real action to stop gun violence looks like,” US Senator Bernie tweeted about the decision. (This has sparked Second Amendment debates in that country again, which is exactly what the alleged shooter wanted.)

Authorities are hauling citizens before the courts like never before for sharing the gruesome footage the attacker live streamed during the attack. This is, again, above and beyond the power normally exerted by the New Zealand government, at least as far as I can remember.

On top of that, New Zealand media are largely choosing not to name the Australian man behind the attacks in order to stop him from gaining the notoriety he so desperately sought. This is after Prime Minister Ardern told parliament she would never mention his name.

Let’s not act on emotion

While I wholeheartedly agree that what happened last week should never happen, I can’t help but feel that the government should take a slower, more deliberate approach when it comes to changing laws and how things are done in our country. Making kneejerk reactions based on red, hot emotion is usually never a good idea.

As Prime Minister Ardern and others have pointed out already, the hate that led to the repugnant events of last Friday was not born and bred in New Zealand. It’s worth remembering that New Zealand was a very safe place before last week’s attack, and it is still a very safe place today. In fact, the Global Peace Index in 2018 named New Zealand the second most peaceful country in the world, following Iceland in the top spot.

For now, I’ll be thinking of all those involved in this tragedy as they farewell their loved ones, and as New Zealanders slowly pick up the pieces and return to some state of normalcy.




 

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