13 votes

A new gun law banning all semi-automatic weapons used during the Christchurch terrorist attack, has passed its first reading.

4 comments

  1. Grzmot
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    Good. NZ has identified a way to massively hinder any further perpetrators and acted on it. No matter how much some people in the US want to believe that it's a mental health problem or whatever,...

    Good. NZ has identified a way to massively hinder any further perpetrators and acted on it. No matter how much some people in the US want to believe that it's a mental health problem or whatever, it's very much access to guns which will cause mass shootings. Otherwise the frequency would be the same across all countries and not a massive spike in North America.

    Of course, there are other ways to kill lots of people in public, but I think this is a good way to stop a majority of these attacks.

    6 votes
  2. [3]
    Comment deleted by author
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    1. [2]
      mftrhu
      Link Parent
      Yeah, the "if they want to kill someone they'll find a way" argument has always sounded fairly ridiculous to me. Sure. It's trivially true - if someone wants to kill people bad enough, they'll...

      trying to kill 50 people with a knife is much harder then trying to kill 50 people with a semi automatic weapon.

      Yeah, the "if they want to kill someone they'll find a way" argument has always sounded fairly ridiculous to me.

      Sure. It's trivially true - if someone wants to kill people bad enough, they'll manage.

      If gun control is not that strict they could even find a gun to do it! But they'd have to go out of their way for that, and they'd need more time and more money, and it would impose an hurdle which would discourage or stop less determined people.

      And if gun control is strict enough, if the only weapon they can't find is not even a pistol - let alone an automatic or semi-automatic rifle - but a knife, or a bat, that would limit their impact to a ridiculous degree.

      It might not completely eradicate these kinds of crimes, but no law can ever hope to do that, nor they aim at that - just reducing their incidence and impact is plenty.

      2 votes
      1. vakieh
        Link Parent
        Even that is a specious argument. If someone wants to kill people bad enough, they'll try to manage. And that trying will put out ripples, and that makes it all that more likely that those ripples...

        if someone wants to kill people bad enough, they'll manage

        Even that is a specious argument. If someone wants to kill people bad enough, they'll try to manage. And that trying will put out ripples, and that makes it all that more likely that those ripples will be picked up on by the police and that someone stopped in advance.

        2 votes