Free Republic

Shortly after the terrorist attack that left 51 dead in Christchurch, New Zealand earlier this year, Prime Minster Jacinda Ardern vowed to ban all semi-automatic rifles. The firearms that were used in the attack were legally obtained but illegally modified. The "assault weapons ban" was finalized and Friday was the last day for New Zealanders to hand over the newly banned firearms as part of a so-called "buyback program." The government set aside $110 million to compensate gun owners for their firearms. In total, the government collected 47,000 firearms. An accounting firm the government hired determined that the number of...

Following a ban on virtually all semi-automatic firearms, New Zealanders face 5 years in jail if they refuse to hand them in. A France 24 report on the government’s new buyback scheme showed a line of gun owners willfully giving up their guns in response to the Christchurch massacre earlier this year. This despite the fact that the shooter himself said in his own manifesto that provoking mass gunfiscation was one of his intended goals. Mission accomplished.

The Swiss government has been more supportive of citizens owning guns than just about anywhere else. But they voted in a referendum over the weekend for more restrictions, and an analyst explains it was under extreme pressure from the European Union. EU officials told “gun-friendly nations – the Czech Republic and Switzerland” – to make changes in their laws or lose the benefits of easy cross-border access. “In essence, the EU provided a solution in search of a problem,” wrote Bill Wirtz of Young Voices Advocates at the Foundation for Economic Education. “And somehow, they got people to agree with...

Violent criminals themselves have suggested weak sentences and mass immigration have also played a role in the breakdown of law and order in the city. One gang member who told the BBC he “wouldn’t be able to” count the number of people he had stabbed recently revealed that “Giving tougher sentences will prevent people from carrying knives because nobody wants to go to jail for 10 or 15 years just for carrying a knife.” Another told the Evening Standard how “In the last 10 years, since the Somalis and the Congolese came to London, they taught us a whole new...