The Daily - How New Zealand Banned Assault Rifles in Six Days

Episode Date: March 22, 2019

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand promised to change the country’s gun laws after a mass shooting in Christchurch left 50 people dead. Less than a week later, she did it. Guest: Jamie Tarabay, a New York Times correspondent based in Australia who has been reporting in New Zealand. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, the Prime Minister of New Zealand promised to change the country's gun laws after a mass shooting last Friday. Less than a week later, she actually did it. She actually did it. It's Friday, March 22nd. Jamie, in the immediate aftermath of the mosque attacks in New Zealand,

what was the response from the country's prime minister? Jacinda Ardern came out and had a very sort of hastily arranged press briefing. Sorry, let's go straight to the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, speaking now. And her first words were a complete and utter denouncement of what had happened. There is no place in New Zealand for such acts of extreme and unprecedented violence, which it is clear this act was. She was very striking. Many of those who will have been directly affected by the shooting may be migrants to New Zealand.

They may even be refugees here. They have chosen to make New Zealand their home, and it is their home. She said, they are us. The person who has perpetuated this violence against us is not. She said, they are us. We reject everything about this sort of person. He is not one of us. The people who are part of our community, who have moved to this country, who have made lives here,

these are the people who are a part of New Zealand. Jamie Tarabay just returned from reporting in New Zealand. So it was a really strong statement right from the beginning. And what does she do next? One of the first things she does is she gets on a plane and goes to Christchurch. And at this point, all the domestic flights are grounded because in New Zealand, you don't need to go through security checks to fly domestically. You actually just walk straight onto the plane. I didn't know that.

So she took a government plane and flew in. She arrived on the scene in Christchurch. She went to a college campus that had been used as the sort of meeting point for the families and friends. And, you know, I saw her walk in and she had a black headscarf on. What did that signal to you? It told me that she's culturally attuned and she recognized that these were people in prayer

and this terrible thing happened to them and their families. You know, you've got to understand at this point, a lot of the people in that space still hadn't heard what had happened to their loved ones. Mm-hmm. I met a 17-year-old boy there who kept on calling his dad's phone and then kept on going to voicemail.

And this is the day after? This is the day after. And he said to me that if he hadn't been told that his father was at hospital, then he could assume that he was dead. And so you have people in this state of anxiety and stress and grief. And she walked into this situation and she just sort of said to the leaders who had gathered there, my time is yours. What do you want me to do? And they said to her,

we want you to meet the families. And she did. She hugged people. She hugged men and women, men who were dressed quite conservatively. As-salamu alaykum. She began her words with as-salamu alaykum, which is Arabic for peace be upon you, which is the standard Muslim greeting as well. I'm here today to bring with me the grief of all of New Zealand. And there is huge grief in this nation.

And I'm here also to stand alongside you. And she was just there. She was very present. And she was connecting with all of these people emotionally. It was very moving to watch. And you could see that it had impacted her as well. And so we feel deeply in our hearts what has happened to you. We feel grief. We feel grief. We feel

injustice. We feel anger. And we share that with you. Was any of this surprising to you, the way that she's approaching this horrible event in the first hours or so after? I think for anyone who has watched her, this is not a surprise at all. She came into politics this way. She is progressive. She's young. She refused to answer questions about whether she would have a child in office because she said you wouldn't be asking men those questions. And then, of course, she later on, she did have a child in office, announced a tax package live from her couch while holding her 10-day-old baby. So I just wanted to share a few thoughts on that from the comfort of the couch,

sitting with little Niamh here with me. Took her three-month-old at the time to the UN, you know, just really sort of international darling because she's always sort of appeared to be a human being first and a politician second. So given her, you know, really remarkable display of grief and sympathy over the weekend, that part of her personality was not unexpected. What happened afterwards was... I want to speak specifically about the firearms used in this terrorist act.

...that by the end of the weekend... I can tell you one thing right now, our gun laws will change. She had said that the gun laws in New Zealand were going to change. And she said, they are going to change, not I am going to propose that they change. It was unequivocal. There was no dispute about what she said. And that was what was most surprising. There have been attempts to change our laws in 2005, 2012, and after an inquiry in 2017. Now is the time for change. What did you think of that?

I remember hearing her say that and thinking, sure you will, and being quite skeptical. Right. I mean, it's not something that you will, and being quite skeptical. Right. I mean, it's not something that you imagine that would happen so quickly. And she doesn't have a major, like, majority in her government. So she was finishing the weekend, this weekend of grief. You know, candlelight vigils and people from around the country came to Christchurch to show their sympathy and their support for the Muslim community.

Then to have her say the gun laws are going to change before she's even met with her cabinet, it was really, really striking. So how does she go about trying to actually do this? Look, I think that she had a lot of momentum. I think that she wanted to act quickly. And for her, in New Zealand, they had a template very close by. Good morning. On the island of Tasmania the worst massacre in Australian history is finally over. At least 34 people were killed and four others critically wounded when a 29 year old gunman with a history of mental

problems opened fire in a popular tourist area. The carnage came to an end only this morning after the gunman caught fire following a 12-hour standoff with police. He's alive and in custody today, Monday, April 29, 1996. We had a conservative government in charge at the time. The Prime Minister, John Howard, tonight detailed sweeping plans to reform Australia's national gun laws, which could mean the introduction of a one-off tax to buy back illegal weapons. In the wake of Port Arthur, Mr Howard has also promised to consider new restrictions on violent videos and computer games. Which normally wouldn't be so quick

to move on things like this. I thought to myself, if I don't use the authority of this newly acquired office to do something, the Australian people are entitled to think, well, this bloke's not up to much. And so when you have that political will, when you have that support from the people in charge, despite the fact that there was a very vocal gun lobby in Australia, they managed to push through the bans on all of these weapons and implement a buyback and a gun amnesty. People used to say to me, you've violated my human rights by taking away my gun. And I'd say, look, I understand that. But will you please understand the argument?

The greatest human right of all is to live a safe life without fear of random murder. And it worked. It is incontestable that gun-related homicides have fallen quite significantly in Australia. Incontestable. I mean, if you had 13 mass shootings before Port Arthur and you had none since, isn't that evidence? Or are we expected to believe that that was all magically going to happen? There hasn't been any kind of mass shooting like that in Australia since. So it was something that was feasible and successful.

We'll be right back. On 15 March, the nation witnessed a terrorist attack that demonstrated the weakness of New Zealand's gun laws. So how does this week end for the Prime Minister? So she'd spent the week mourning publicly, but also behind doors, talking, consulting with her cabinet. But she's also reaching out to the opposition. She wants to make sure that this is a unified effort.

She wants to make sure that everyone's feeling included. And beyond that, it's also a question about national unity as well. The time for the mass and easy availability of these weapons must end. And, you know, by Thursday Thursday she came out and she declared... And today they will. ..that her government has banned all the different kinds of weapons that were used in that attack. Today I'm announcing that New Zealand will ban

all military-style semi-automatic weapons. We will also ban all assault rifles. We will ban all high-capacity magazines. 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. In short, every semi-automatic weapon used in the terrorist attack on Friday will be banned in this country. And, you know, there was going to be a buyback for everyone who has those weapons already. So, you know, people who spent over $1,000 on an AR-15 that they use at the range, they have to turn it in and they'll be given money.

It's going to cost the New Zealand government about $140 million to pay for it. But they've literally decided all of these things within the space of two or three days. Right. In six days, actually a little bit less than six days after a mass shooting, the prime minister of New Zealand has fundamentally changed the country's gun laws, banned certain weapons, restricted access to others. I mean, that's kind of staggering. It's huge. Jamie, what explains how this unfolded, how quickly it unfolded in New Zealand in the aftermath of a mass shooting compared with how it usually happens in a place like the US after a mass shooting here? Well, I think one of the first things

that you have to look at is the gun culture within both of those countries. In New Zealand, you are very heavily regulated. If you want to apply for a license, you have to have background checks. You have to show that you are mentally fit to have one. You have to have two references and those references get interviewed. Your partner or your family member gets interviewed.

Two references as in people have to write or be... People have to stand up for you and then they get interviewed. So they need to show why they support you getting a license. That's fascinating. And then for the particular gun that you want, you then also have to get a license for that particular weapon. And then if you get a traffic violation, if the police get called to your house, that all goes into the database. And if the police feel that you're coming to their attention a bit too much, they'll come in and they'll check in on you. So this is a heavily regulated gun culture.

This is a country where you have to prove that you are able to have a weapon and that you deserve to have one. You are responsible enough to have one. And of course, in the U.S., we have the Second Amendment, which has created a legal sense that gun ownership is a natural born right. It's something that you just possess as an American. Right. And in some states in America, you can carry your weapon on you. That would be unheard of in New Zealand. States in America, you can carry a weapon on you that would be unheard of in New Zealand. You are only allowed to take your weapon when you're firing it on the range or if you're, you know, sort of doing a cull of animals on your farm or something, or you're hunting. So there is very

specific places you can use your weapon. There is a significant number of gun owners in New Zealand. There's about 250,000 in a population of 5 million. But by and large, it's not an assault rifle culture. It's more of a sportsmanship shooting precision target competition. Actually, New Zealand hosted the World Shooting Championship earlier this year. So the notion of kind of self-defense, owning a gun. Exactly. To use it against a criminal.

Right. It's not the culture. No, the rate of homicides in New Zealand, especially bydefense, owning a gun. Exactly. To use it against a criminal. Right. That's not the culture. No, the rate of homicides in New Zealand, especially by guns, is very low. And it's, yeah, it is definitely more of we have guns for sport rather than guns for self-defense. Does New Zealand have an NRA type of lobby and political power? It has people who are pro-guns, obviously.

There are people who run blogs that are somewhat influential. But the degree to which the NRA in the United States operates and lobbies, there's just nothing like that in New Zealand. The head of the NRA in New Zealand. There is an NRA. There is an NRA in New Zealand. It's completely different. Actually, last year, they were considering changing their name because they didn't want the association. What did they find that the U.S. NRA is too much of for them? There's a couple of different things. They thought the NRA in the U.S. was extremely political,

but they also said that the NRA in America embraces all the different rifles, etc., whereas they were just concerned with thousand-yard shooting, precision target rifles. They didn't do military rifles. They didn't do assault rifles. And they just thought that was a very clear difference between them and the United States. A really important point that the head of the NRA in New Zealand told me is that gun ownership in New Zealand is a privilege. It is not a right. It's something that the government allows you to have if you pass through these rigorous checks.

So it's not actually within the gun culture in New Zealand to sort of rail against the idea that those guns would be taken away. What you're describing is a state of national horror after a massacre in New Zealand that galvanized the entire country to change their gun laws. And to an American, that still feels kind of unfathomable and impractical because we have had so many of these mass shootings and massacres and they don't end up unifying people. It ends up doing the opposite. In fact, it ends up polarizing the country. So I think that one of the things that strikes Australians and New Zealanders whenever there is a mass shooting in America is how can this still be going on? And in the sense that Australia

was quick to achieve consensus, New Zealand was quick to achieve consensus. And in the United States, consensus is so far out of reach. You cannot have unity around gun culture and gun control if you don't have unity within the community. New Zealand is a very inclusive society. It's used to people coming from different countries and assimilating and making lives there. These are people who are New Zealanders first. And so when Jacinda Ardern said, these people are us, they are us, she included everyone altogether in this. Right. The immigrants, the Muslims. It shocked everyone. So she had the political will. She had, you know, the politicians,

the opposition on board. She had the people supporting her, even gun owners. Gun owners supported the decision to take away their guns. Even gun retailers and hunting groups and fishing groups agreed that this was something that needed to be done. Finally, I want to repeat a message I have consistently shared since announcing our laws would change. We do have guns in New Zealand that are used for legitimate purposes by responsible owners. I've been steadfast in my belief that the vast majority of these owners will support what we are doing here today because it's about all of us. It's in the national interest and it's about safety. I will work hard to retain that support as we work on the remaining tranches of reform that we must make to prevent an act of terror happening in our country ever again.

Jamie, thank you very much. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Here's what else you need to know today. The message that President Trump has given the world is that America stands by Israel. On Thursday, President Trump said that the U.S. should recognize Israel's authority over the Golan Heights, Trump said that the U.S. should recognize Israel's authority over the Golan Heights, one of the world's most disputed territories, in a reversal of decades of American policy and in violation of a United Nations resolution. Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and effectively annexed it in 1981. But neither the U.S. nor the U.N. consider it a part of Israel, arguing its fate

should be determined in a larger negotiation over peace with Palestinians. This is the eve of Purim and we have a miracle of Purim. We call it Nest Purim. President Trump has just made history. The decision was made at the request of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is locked in a close re-election battle, faces a series of indictments, and could benefit politically from the policy change. During a news conference in Israel with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Netanyahu thanked the Trump administration for the decision.

I called him. I thanked him on behalf of the people of Israel. He recognized Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights. And the Times reports that safety features that might have prevented the Boeing 737 MAX 8 from crashing in Indonesia and Ethiopia were optional ones for which Boeing charged extra and which were not present on the doomed planes.

The optional features help catch erroneous readings from sensors that could prompt the plane's flight control system to force down the nose of the plane, a suspected cause of the crash in Indonesia and a possible explanation for what happened in Ethiopia. the crash in Indonesia, and a possible explanation for what happened in Ethiopia. The Daily is produced by Theo Balcom, Lindsay Garrison, Rachel Quester, Annie Brown, Andy Mills, Ike Sreeskanaraja, Claire Tennesketter, Michael Simon-Johnson, Jessica Chung, Alexandra Lee Young, Thank you. And our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly.

Special thanks to Sam Dolmick, Michaela Bouchard, and Stella Tan. And today, we say farewell to Ike's Reese Conneraja, who we'll miss dearly. Thank you, Ike. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.