Peaceful nation confronts one of its ‘darkest days’

N.Z.’s homicide rate well below global norms

When the gunman opened fire Friday on two mosques in New Zealand, the resulting death toll of at least 49 people meant that more were killed on one day than are usually slain in an entire year in the country, according to national police statistics.

New Zealand’s gun ownership rate has risen in the past decade to become one of the highest in the world, yet its homicide rate remains well below global norms as many of those weapons belong to hunters and farmers.

The shootings may add fresh fodder to the gun control debate for New Zealand’s 4.5 million citizens. The country, considered to have more permissible firearms laws than its neighbour, Australia, has largely escaped the deeply polarizing debates over guns that are common in the U.S.

Civilian gun ownership in New Zealand increased 62 per cent from 2005, according to GunPolicy.org, a firearm prevention group hosted by the Sydney School of Public Health. The total number of guns, both legal and illicit, held by New Zealand’s civilians reached 1.5 million in 2017, according to the group.

Rifles and shotguns, which are bigger and typically require two hands to operate, are the firearms of choice for New Zealand citizens. That’s likely indicative of their use for hunting or by farmers protecting livestock.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who called the Christchurch shootings a terrorist attack, signalled her views on gun laws in her reaction to the 2017 mass shootings in Las Vegas.

“When you see horrific situations like this, there’s nothing that justifies such liberal gun laws,” she told national broadcaster TVNZ in October of that year, before she became prime minister.

New Zealand has the 17th highest rate of civilian firearm holdings per 100 residents, with 26.3, according to the Small Arms Survey released in Geneva in June. By comparison, the U.S. has 120.5 guns per 100 residents, the highest rate in the world. Australia and the U.K. aren’t in the top 25.

Handguns made up less than three per cent of the firearms in 2017, according to GunPolicy. One of the suspects in the Christchurch shootings allegedly used a semi-automatic, high-powered firearm that’s banned in Australia.

Murders using guns is rarer still. In the decade up to 2015, there were only two years in which the number of gun homicides reached 10 or more in New Zealand.

Ne w Z e a l a n d ’ s o v e r - all homicide rate of 1.2 per 100,000 people is well below the global rate of 6.4, according to a WHO report from 2015.

Gun licences in New Zealand can be obtained starting at 16 years of age. Residents must show up at their police arms office, typically at the police station, to apply in person. Permits are needed to buy pistols from individuals, there are restrictions on semi-automatic guns, and the licences of gun dealers must be renewed annually, according to national laws.

Until recently, police in New Zealand have not felt the need to carry firearms on duty. Last month, however, the Canterbury district on New Zealand’s southern island broke with that protocol after a series of incidents that left one shooting suspect on the loose.

At the time, New Zealand Police Association President Chris Cahill told Reuters that “more and more policemen are finding criminals with guns, so unless we find a way of stopping these firearms from reaching them, we will have no other choice but to arm our officers.”

Meanwhile, New Zealand is generally considered to be a welcoming country for immigrants and refugees. Last year, the prime minister announced the country would boost its annual refugee quota from 1,000 to 1,500 starting in 2020. Ardern, whose party campaigned on the promise of raising the in-

MORE AND MORE POLICE ARE FINDING CRIMINALS WITH GUNS.

take of refugees, dubbed the planned increase “the right thing to do.”

In his video, the gunman said he chose New Zealand because of its location, to show that even the most remote parts of the world were not free of “mass immigration.”

Muslims across New Zealand number about 50,000.

The New York Times said the first Muslims to arrive in New Zealand were an AngloIndian family who landed in Christchurch in 1854. Larger-scale Muslim immigration began in the 1970s, with the arrival of families and students from the Pacific islands. The region of Canterbury, which includes Christchurch, has been an area of steady growth.

Muslim migration accelerated in the 1990s and 2000s with immigration from wartorn countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, reported the paper.

Ardern called the massacre “one of New Zealand’s darkest days.”

The prime minister said New Zealand had suffered “an extraordinary and unprecedented act of violence,” lamenting in particular that a target was placed on the country’s migrant population. “They have chosen to make New Zealand their home, and it is their home,” she said.

“They are us,” Ardern said. The “extremist views” that she said motivated the attackers “have absolutely no place in New Zealand,” Ardern said, “and, in fact, have no place in the world.”