"New Zealand’s beleaguered gun owners are bracing for a second round of gun confiscations following a raft of new gun control measures enacted last summer that are set to take effect on February 1. Kiwi shooters will have until August 1 to turn over their prohibited items or face severe criminal penalties.
On March 21, 2019, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern targeted New Zealand’s law-abiding gun owners by unilaterally halting the sale of semi-automatic centerfire firearms that utilize detachable magazines to normal gun owners. The Arms Amendment Act 2019 was passed into law on April 10 and received royal assent the following day. The key provision of the legislation outlawed possession of all semi-automatic centerfire rifles and their magazines. The legislation also prohibited pump-action and semi-automatic shotguns with detachable magazines or a non-detachable magazine capable of accepting more than 5 rounds and any .22 caliber and lower rimfire semi-automatic rifle “that has a magazine, whether or not detachable or otherwise externally fed, that is capable of holding no more than 10 cartridges.”"
In other news from New Zealand:
" On April 5, 2019, three days after New Zealand’s Arms Amendment Act 2019 advanced from its first reading in parliament, NRA-ILA noted that “[g]iven the abundant research on Australia’s similar gun confiscation efforts, New Zealand officials can expect that their gun control measures will do little more than trample the natural rights of gun owners…” This week the first evidence vindicating this position came in when Radio New Zealand (RNZ) published figures it had obtained from the government showing that for last year crime involving firearms was the highest it had been since 2009.
According to an RNZ article titled, “Rates of gun crimes and killings using guns at highest levels in a decade in 2019,” last year “there were 3540 occasions where an offender was found with a gun.” The report went on to note that “in both of the last two years, the rate of deadly incidents involving a firearm was the highest it had been since 2009” and that “[t]he number of guns seized by police is also on the rise, up almost 50 percent on five years earlier at 1263 last year.” Making clear that the figures cited in the article were not skewed by the horrific shooting in Christchurch, the report noted that “[t]he 15 March terror attacks were listed as two separate firearms-related incidents.”"
And lets see if you all can respond to this without killing the messenger.
That what VA tried to do with their initial legislation push last year. Blatantly tried confiscation. That’s why I don’t trust any democrat on firearms.
It’s strange because I was just reading an article today about how they had been a socialist country and that tanked, of course, so they reversed that an shot right up the economic freedom index and recovered nicely.
New Zealand’s overall crime rate is only a little lower than the US. However their homicide rate it 1/5th the US and their death by firearm rate is 1/12th. If they’ve made the choice to shift the type of crime away from the violent category by removing guns, that seems to have be the case be it causative or simply correlative.
Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party government was overwhelmingly returned at their last general election winning 65 seats; the first time a single party had won enough seats to govern alone with their current electoral system. Kiwis supported the actions of the Labour Party government.
