Opinion

USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- Instead of rushing to turn in their guns in the aftermath of the double mosque attacks in Christchurch, reports from New Zealand indicate that many of the island nation’s citizens are actually rushing to gun stores in the anticipation of a ban that might be coming from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, according to Stuff, a New Zealand news organ.

While some Kiwi gun owners have, indeed, surrendered firearms to the authorities as reported previously by AmmoLand News, others appear to have a far different attitude. According to the Stuff report, Blenheim gun shop owner Peter Watson said hunters and sport shooters are “already considering purchases” and were “keen to buy” guns after Ardern announced the nation’s gun laws would change.

Does that make reports from CNN and The Daily Mail about the turn-ins “fake news?” Not necessarily, but it does show that not all New Zealanders are jumping on the disarmament bandwagon.

According to CNN, quoting Prof. Philip Alpers—founder of “GunPolicy.org”—the nation’s firearms laws have “remained substantially unaltered since 1992.” Calls for registration and other restrictions have essentially gone unanswered.

Alpers reportedly complained to CNN that, “Not one of these measures has been addressed by legislation. Government has since considered a range of similar recommendations, but special interest groups prevent meaningful change.”

He also lamented that New Zealand, like the United States and Canada, have decided not to require registration of civilian firearms. That contrasts with the overwhelming majority of countries surveyed by the United Nations, CNN reported.

But UN efforts at global gun control have hit a wall in the United States, where Second Amendment activists have been on the forefront of the resistance. Indeed, one of the nation’s leading gun rights advocates, Alan Gottlieb, has been a leader in the formation and expansion of the International Association for the Preservation of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR). Gottlieb is founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation and also chairs the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

In an Op-Ed he bylined for USA Today Wednesday, Gottlieb noted that;

“Gun control proponents argue that America could ‘learn something’ from the horrendous attack on two New Zealand mosques. They are hoping that our citizens, gripped by emotion, will overlook the obvious and agree that law-abiding gun owners should face additional restrictions on their rights.” “The real lesson to be learned from the Christchurch massacre,” Gottlieb’s piece observes, “is that madmen aren’t deterred by gun control laws, or laws against murder. Morality doesn’t enter into their thinking, so honest people must be prepared for the unthinkable and be able to respond.”

Gottlieb’s position was, at this writing, garnering about 75 percent support from USA Today readers, while the newspaper’s editorial calling for more gun restrictions was supported by less than half the readers while slightly more than 51 percent of the respondents opposed the newspaper’s position.

Watson, the Blenheim gun dealer, told Stuff that he does not support a “blanket ban” on semiautomatic firearms. He pointed to the use of semi-auto shotguns for waterfowl hunting, and for bird predation management by the operators of vineyards. He criticized the government’s “knee jerk reaction” to the mosque attacks, which involved a single gunman who left a lengthy “manifesto” in which he claimed to have acted

The government is expected to announce new gun control measures by next Monday.

Meanwhile, writing at The Daily Caller, Erich Pratt with Gun Owners of America noted that New Zealand already has stricter gun laws than the United States, and that the suspect “broke off the attack only after being confronted with a weapon.”

One of the intended victims at the second mosque picked up an empty shotgun and reportedly threw it at the suspect, smashing the window of his getaway car. Earlier reports suggested that the worshipper had actually fired at the suspect, but as is often the case with reporting such events, the first reports were wrong.

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About Dave Workman

Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.