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Down Under
‘I don't understand': Jacinda Ardern mystified by lack of US gun control
2019-05-16
[Guardian] New Zealand's prime minister has said she cannot understand America's failure to ban automatic and semi-automatic guns, despite dozens of mass shootings.
Drop her off in Chicago and let her experience more stringent gun laws than NZ.
Jacinda Ardern told CNN's Christiane Amanpour in unusually blunt language: "Australia experienced a massacre and changed its laws. New Zealand has had its experience and changed its laws. To be honest with you, I don't understand the United States."
Christiane doesn't understand either.
See, here’s the thing: we changed our laws some decades ago, and found that made things worse. So we’ve been changing them back. No doubt eventually y’all will also figure it out.
Ardern is in Paris where she is lobbying countries and global tech companies to sign the "Christchurch Call", a voluntary pledge that aims to eradicate terrorist and violent content online in the wake of the worst mass shooting in New Zealand's modern history.
Yes, disarming lawful citizens always has that effect.
The US is not sending anyone to the meeting of digital ministers from the Group of 7 nations to discuss the plan, and is not intending to sign the pledge.
I believe the actual text of the reply was "Are you nuts?".
WTF is a "digital minister"?
President Trump doesn’t do pointless joint virtue signalling just to make other countries feel better about doing nothing together.
Christchurch Call: details emerge of Ardern's plan to tackle online extremism

The day before the summit, Facebook said it was tightening rules on use of its livestreaming feature, which was used to broadcast the Christchurch attack. It said people who have faced disciplinary action for breaking Facebook's most serious rules would be temporarily suspended from using the Live function.

Facebook did not specify which offences were eligible or how long suspensions would last, but a spokeswoman claimed it would not have been possible for the attack to have been livestreamed.

Talking to Amanpour, Ardern said that before the Christchurch mosque shootings on 15 March, in which 51 people died, New Zealand had "pretty permissive gun legislation".

But despite New Zealand being a hunting and food-producing nation, that was not justification enough for access to high-powered military-style rifles, Ardern said, and the Labour coalition government passed legislation banning access within weeks of the massacre.
Let them eat cake.
"We will continue to be a food-producing nation that deals with animal welfare issues and so on, and has a practical purpose and use for guns, but you can draw a line and say that that does not mean that you need access to military-style semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles. You do not. And New Zealanders, by and large, absolutely agreed with that position," Ardern said.
Lotta sheep in NZ?.
Six days after the Christchurch mosque attacks, the New Zealand the government announced it would ban all military-style semi-automatics (MSSA) and assault rifles in New Zealand. Related parts used to convert these guns into MSSAs were also banned, along with all high-capacity magazines.

In the days and weeks after the Christchurch shootings, hundreds of New Zealanders voluntarily surrendered their weapons to police, before an official government buy-back scheme was launched that is expected to cost NZ$100-200m ($65m-$130m).
How is it a buy-back when the Gov't never owned them in the first place?
Posted by:Warthog

#14  i don't understand every one else in the world being concerned about our gun laws. FOAD
Posted by: chris   2019-05-16 16:42  

#13  Did New Zealand fight for their independence or did Britain just ask them to leave? It makes a hug difference to ones outlook.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2019-05-16 14:04  

#12  Jacinda, You don't have to understand. It's an AMERICAN thing.
Posted by: JohnQC   2019-05-16 13:49  

#11  They want another faceless bureaucracy at the UN to tell us what we can and can't own in the US? They will also happily send us the bill for their junkets to 5-star vacation resorts for committee meetings no doubt.
Posted by: magpie   2019-05-16 12:45  

#10  You are a movie set and a queer notion.

They also have hobbits, but I have no idea what the bag limit is.
Posted by: SteveS   2019-05-16 11:27  

#9  To be honest with you, I don't understand the United States.

Because you are a tyrant, and your shithole government can go right the fuck off.

But despite New Zealand being a hunting and food-producing nation

You are a movie set and a queer notion.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2019-05-16 10:41  

#8  ... And New Zealanders, by and large, absolutely agreed to that

Posted by: Dron66046   2019-05-16 09:54  

#7  IDF vet ‘Queen of guns’ praises US firearm laws as ‘best in the world’
Posted by: Skidmark   2019-05-16 09:18  

#6  A farmer's typical 7x57 Model 93/95 Mauser of the type confiscated by British authorities in the Free State of SA circa 1901. Anyone care to fast forward to the same region, the current day.
Posted by: Besoeker   2019-05-16 08:49  

#5  Jacinda Ardern doesn't grasp, we didn't wait to be given 'Commonweath' status and independence. We took it by force because we don't trust our 'betters' to rule us. Things haven't changed in over 200 years. We still don't trust 'them'.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2019-05-16 08:41  

#4  Weird. Some animals live-streamed their racially-motivated torture of a developmentally disabled man in Chicago, and Facebook never considered changing their policy.
Posted by: Rob Crawford   2019-05-16 06:32  

#3  I will take the chauvinist position and state that most women aren't cut out for politics because they fold like cheap card tables when it comes to understanding things like our Second Amendment versus the unrelenting gun-grabbing pricks of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and don't tell me for a second that doesn't influence NZ politics.
Posted by: Raj   2019-05-16 01:06  

#2  Where can I buy these automatic weapons? Walmart seems to be all out. Asking for a friend.
Posted by: Phimble Elmusonter1143   2019-05-16 00:48  

#1  Maybe she will if the US rescinds the mutual defense treaty.
Posted by: Phimble Elmusonter1143   2019-05-16 00:43  

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