New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced a ban on "military-style" semi-automatic rifles in the country.
"Today I am announcing that New Zealand will ban all military-style semi-automatic weapons. We will also ban all assault rifles. We will also ban all high capacity magazines," she said. "We will ban all parts with the ability to convert semi-automatic or any other type of firearm into a military-style semi-automatic weapon."
Semi-automatic firearms and "military style" semi-automatic firearms function the same. The only difference between them is purely aesthetic.
According to Ardern, "military style" is defined by the following:
Two types of firearms are now defined as Military Style Semi-Automatics (MSSAs):
· A semi-automatic firearm capable of being used with a detachable magazine which holds more than five cartridges
· A semi-automatic shotgun capable of being used with a detachable magazine which holds more than five cartridges
The new bans are effective immediately, although they will go through parliament for a vote.
Ardern said sellers should halt the sales of the banned weapons immediately and warned shops to return their stockpiles to suppliers.
Residents caught with the banned guns will face the penalties, including fines of up to $4,000 and/or three years in prison.
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders agrees (with at least banning the sale and distribution):
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All societies live in risk, but the minimization of social risk also requires minimized freedom. It requires that people be prohibited from making, buying, selling, or giving access to either products or services that, in some fashion, might contribute to the risk of physical harm or mental distress. In theory, this means most things entail major risk: cars, airplanes, tools, drugs, foods, sports, recreation, religion, speech, or even romantic relationships. All these things and activities can lead to distress, injury, maiming, sickness, emotional pain, loss of income, or even death.
So what is the balance between the freedom to enjoy life and the risk it entails? How does one measure the utility of the maximization of collective safety vs. the minimization of the freedom to enjoy life? How much is a life worth? A million, a billion, a trillion? How much is the freedom of 5M NZ citizens worth, nothing or everything?
The thoughtless and emotional calculus of New Zealand's gun control is, apparently, that if over 75 years one major incident of 50 dead (out of 82 total dead to "massacres" of 2-4 or more) in a nation of 5 million occurs, that it requires a major and permanent loss in the privilege of owning semi-automatic firearms - due to that ONE incident.
If this new legislation cuts the causality rate from "massacres" in half, say to .5 lives saved per year, is it worth it?
I don't think there is a clear and objective answer. For example, perhaps NZ ought to ban motorcycles? There are 1.5 million guns in NZ. There are 200,000 motorcycles in NZ. However, motorcycles kill (on average) the equivalent of one Christchurch sized massacre per year, about 45 persons!
As a ratio of death by use of an instrumentality, collectively motorcycles are 90 times more deadly to the NZ people than a massacre aided by a semi-auto rifle.
Or put another way, there are only 200,000 motorcycles in NZ which kill 45 people per year. There are 1.5 million guns in NZ, and about 5-6 people killed by a gun homicide per year.
In other words, the death rate from NZ motorcycle is 61 times greater than the homicidal gun death rate from any NZ gun.
So how does one accept the proposition that motorcycles are an acceptable risk to public safety, but not guns?
