Crikey
By Mitch Berg
New Zealand’s government imposed draconian gun regulations in the wake of the 2019 Christchurch mosque massacre (which, let the record show, would have been worse without a good guy with a gun).
“Unexpectedly”, gang membership has skyrocketed, and gang-related shootings are up by a third:
“Over the last five years gangs have recruited more than 3000 members, a 51 percent increase. At the same time, we’ve seen a significant escalation in gang-related violence, public intimidation and shootings, with violent crime up 33 percent.” says Mr Goldsmith.
On the one hand, everything Jacinda Ardern touched turned to crap.
On the other – they were warned.
April 29th, 2024 at 6:03 am
Australia had a similar spike in crime after the sheep dutifully turned in their guns. Home invasions, the majority of them violent, increased about 24% within eight months.
April 29th, 2024 at 6:09 am
It’s weird. The UK. New Zealand. Australia. Canada. Many regions of the US. It’s almost as if there’s some fatal flaw in Anglo-Saxons that causes them to self-sabotage any community in which they dominate.
April 29th, 2024 at 6:34 am
When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns.
How hard is that to understand?
April 29th, 2024 at 8:07 am
I’ve shared this before, but, to jdm’s point, my uncle, who fought in Europe and visited both England and France back in the mid eighties, was disgusted with the direction he saw those countries going. He got pretty choked up when he remembered the men in his unit that died there and lamented what a waste it was, because the citizens there were throwing their freedom away and felt that “we should have let the Nazis have them”, because that’s the way they were going.
His brother, who was in the Pacific and fought with Australian troops, didn’t talk much about his experiences, but I can only wonder now how he would have viewed the direction that the country has taken over the past ten years.
April 29th, 2024 at 9:22 am
When I was in New Zealand in 2002, I went into a sporting goods shop in Queenstown to browse around and spotted a wall display of rifles. I like rifles, so I checked them out.
No big deal..then.
However, what caught my eye was a .243 (as I recall) with a six inch silencer.
Whoa!!
I asked the clerk, “what would it take for me to walk out the door with that?”
He reached out, flipped the tag over and said, “$NZ 560.00”
No paperwork.
He explained. The only mammals native to New Zealand are the seal and the bat, everything else is an invasive species, especially possums and deer. The deer hunting season then was 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, shining included, no limit….and oh yeah, could you shoot the one standing next to it?
Okay, so that was 22 years ago and my memory might be a bit foggy, but the gist of it is that times have changed in New Zealand. We spent some time on a sheep ranch and even then, the ranchers were not happy with the encroaching urban views.
April 29th, 2024 at 11:45 am
JDM, that was freaking brilliant.
See also: Malthusianism.
April 29th, 2024 at 3:25 pm
The best nation to try and do a ban with would be an island nation, and it still doesn’t work. And they’ve somewhat succeeded in Japan, and then they get mass stabbings and mass poisonings….maybe do the math a little bit and realize that some people are just not good neighbors?