Following the enactment of New Zealand’s Arms Amendment Act in 1992, the government produced a pamphlet for gun owners that explained the new law. A FAQ-style section titled “Some misconceptions about the new laws,” addressed a hypothetical gun owner statement that “It’s my rights to have and use firearms.” In response to this contention, the government stated, “No it isn’t,” and called a firearms license a “special privilege.”

American gun rights supporters know this to be incorrect. In addition to being protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, firearm ownership is an individual right that is an extension of the natural right of self-defense. Various governments may choose to respect or disrespect that right, but it is a right inherent to all peoples.

As a matter of policy, and as a matter of rights, the New Zealand Parliament would do well to reject the repugnant attack on law-abiding gun owners outlined in Law and Order Committee’s inquiry report, and instead focus their efforts on more directly confronting the criminal misuse of firearms.

NRA-ILA
April 14, 2017
New Zealand MPs Propose Raft of New Gun Controls
[Read how they slid down the slippery slope from the early 19th century through the early 1900s in The Samurai, The Mountie, and the Cowboy.—Joe]

Men control, not “gun control”. Men are the problem. If all men were women, our violence problem would be reduced by 90%.

P Lance
April 14, 2017
Comment to Hoping for fewer school shootings doesn’t work. More gun control might.
[This is just common sense! What do we need so many men for anyway? One man for every 100 women would be more than enough for human reproduction needs. We have the technology to determine the sex at conception. After the initial messy stage, as a 99% of the men are removed from the planet, society would at long last enter the long sought utopia.

I can be sarcastic too.—Joe]

What’s common about common sense depends on context. In this case, the context is a black man entering a Subway shop in 2016 clearly, openly and legally armed, and sending the place into a panic. The cops were called. They demanded to see his permit. He lawfully refused. And Connecticut’s white liberals lost their minds. It’s just crazy that the law bars cops from asking for a person’s permit. This is common sense! The alternative is insane!

John Stoehr
April 12, 2017
John Stoehr: Gun control, in black and white
[Although Stoehr’s point in his opinion piece is inscrutable to me he does have some good observation.

“Common sense!” That is the cry from the anti-gun people. The only facts that matter are that they can’t tolerate the thought of people keeping and bearing arms. The only logic that matters is that they will be afraid if ordinary people could exercise their 2nd Amendment rights. Can’t you see that it just doesn’t make any sense for people to have these things that are designed to kill? You must be stupid, crazy, or have a small penis if that isn’t obvious to you. Analogies are dismissed because, “That’s completely different.”

I think we are at the point that we can mock them most of the rest of the time and ignore them for the most part as we take more and more of their friends and neighbors to the range. Make the nut case anti-gun people into a smaller and smaller minority and eventually they will go silent or wander around the streets mumbling to themselves and the street lights.—Joe]