It’s a start – now for hard part

We don’t often look across the Tasman for advice; out of pride as much as anything else, little brother generally likes to take his own path. But sometimes it pays to look west for guidance, especially when bigger feet know the path we are about to travel.

In the wake of their own nation-defining massacre, the 1996 murder of 35 people at Port Arthur, Tasmania, the John Howard government enacted sweeping reforms of gun legislation 12 days later.

New Zealand’s Government has been even quicker than its Aussie counterpart, announcing bans on military-style semi-automatics, and other deadly accessories, within a week of the murder of 50 people in Christchurch.

It is also planning a weapons buyback scheme and on Monday is expected to move ahead on firearms licensing, while also outlining more detail in its plans.

Like Australia, New Zealand has seized a momentum made of awful mayhem and stands to make great strides in ensuring such things never happen again.

Australia went on to establish the National Firearms Agreement, which included a national registry, a 28-day waiting period for sales, and tightened firearm licensing rules. Its buyback scheme brought in about one million firearms and cost around A$300 million.

Our Government’s swiftness and political unity is to be applauded. Jacinda Ardern stared down potential critics a week ago when declaring that there

would be changes to gun laws. She has delivered on that. But if there is anything we can take from the Australian experience, it is that banning these particular weapons of mass destruction is the easy bit: now for the hard part.

Opposition to change in Australia was strong; Howard wore a bullet-proof vest at one of the public meetings to explain the policy. He toured the country to ensure the fractious states got on board with the federal plan. And a bid by 500 disgruntled firearm owners to join the Liberal Party in an attempt to influence the government was eventually defeated in the courts.

We have no state governments to mollify, but we do have a vocal minority of firearm owners who are already questioning the effectiveness of any legislation and the perceived intrusion on their freedoms.

Some of those gun owners appear to be distrustful of the state; two years ago police were banned from training at a Wairarapa gun club because members felt their management of laws too restrictive. There has been disquiet from other quarters.

Just as Howard and his government did more than 20 years ago, and Ardern herself suggested a week ago in her steely response, we must continue to stare down the critics.

The ban is one thing, but it will mean little without a register to give us a better idea of what firearms are out there, who owns them and the effectiveness of political intervention.

This legislation, and a national register that will hopefully follow it, allows those with a genuine reason to keep their access to these firearms. For anyone else, the door is slammed shut.

Surely, few can take issue with that.

Some gun owners appear distrustful of the state.