A cabinet meeting on Monday will look at a range of options, from gun buybacks to restrictions on magazines for semiautomatic rifles.
CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — When the prime minister announced plans to ban semiautomatic rifles following Friday’s mass shootings, it seemed to be the bold response that many New Zealanders wanted — until the country’s attorney general backpedaled almost immediately and said that might not be the government’s final decision.
Even after a massacre that left 50 people dead, the fight over guns and safety will be a fraught one for politicians in peaceful New Zealand, just as it is in the United States.
But there is a crucial difference between the two countries that is already apparent: While Washington struggles to take action even as such shootings become more routine, New Zealand’s government is immediately diving into a detailed discussion of further legislative checks on guns.
The outright prohibition of semiautomatic weapons proposed by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern may no longer be on the near-term table. But a cabinet meeting called for Monday will look at a range of options, from gun buybacks to restrictions on magazines for semiautomatic rifles.
“New Zealand has to have this debate,” said Alexander Gillespie, a law professor at the University of Waikato, who once predicted that the country’s approach to firearms would lead to more mass shootings. “This is a place where your car has to be registered, your dog has to be registered. But your gun doesn’t.”
New Zealand’s relationship to firearms amounts to a sliding scale of restrictions. Gun owners need a license but the most commonly used guns, like hunting rifles, are never registered and can be easily bought and sold. Handguns and semiautomatic weapons require a permit to purchase and a separate license.
The mix of freedom and regulation reflects the country’s frontier history, according to experts, who note that New Zealand’s link to weaponry bears a resemblance to the United States, Australia and Canada, but with a few important distinctions.
There is no right to own a gun here, as there is in the United States; rather, it is considered a privilege with responsibility.
The gun culture that has developed tends to be organized, careful and not particularly widespread.
