New Zealand free of fear induced by gun culture

In June 2018, my family left McMinnville for New Zealand.

Scott Schieber is a former 20-year resident of McMinnville, where he worked as a family physician and served on the school board. He has since moved his residence and medical practice to Gisborne, New Zealand, where he is living with his wife and youngest child. Gisborne is a coastal town famous for being the first place on earth to see the sunrise each morning. It is also known for great surfing, which is one of his favorite outdoor hobbies, the other being tree-climbing.

My wife and I were born and raised in the U.S. and had been making our home in McMinnville for more than two decades. The reasons for the move were many, but the desire to be in a safer culture was one of them.

Nine months after beginning our new life in New Zealand, though, an Australian white supremacist walked into a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, and began gunning down Islamic worshipers. Ultimately, 51 people lost their lives in this racially motivated act of violence.

He was inspired by a white supremacist who used his car to mow down several people in Charlottesville, Virginia. He in turn inspired mass slayings at a Jewish synagogue in Poway, California, and a Walmart just across the Mexican border in El Paso, Texas.

Among the weapons used by the white male shooter in Christchurch were two AR-15 rifles, legally purchased in New Zealand and lawfully modified for increased firepower.

In the wake of the shooting, the New Zealand parliament swiftly passed a bill outlawing most automatic and semi-automatic weapons, along with the components needed to modify them for increased lethality. The vote was 119 to 1.

New Zealand is now proceeding with a voluntary buy-back program, authorized in the same legislation. In the first few weeks alone, more than 12,000 guns have been voluntarily turned in by New Zealand owners.

This rapid-action New Zealand response to a mass shooting stands in stark contrast to the “thoughts and prayers” inaction in the United States in confronting its ever-present cycle of gun violence.

Why is that? What is it about New Zealand that allows it to quickly enact sensible gun legislation, while in the United States, things seem so slow to change, despite strong public support for gun law reform?

There are some obvious reasons.

New Zealand has a population of 4.7 million subject to a centralized government. The United States has a population of 327 million subject to a broad array of state and federal laws.

In addition, gun ownership, for well-regulated militias or otherwise, is not a part of the governing documents in New Zealand, as it is in the U.S.

My experiences while living in both countries have pointed to other major and important contrasts between the United States and New Zealand as well, and they have helped enable New Zealand to quickly change its gun laws in the wake of the horrific Christcurch shooting.

GUN CULTURE

It is difficult to explain to non-Americans the significance guns have to so many in the U.S.

A 2017 Pew Research study showed 74% of American gun owners considered possession of a gun was essential to their sense of freedom. Half said it was important to their overall identity. And just look at the number of American social media profiles and posts that involve guns.

That sort of emotional attachment and social media posturing about guns is simply not seen in New Zealand.

Gun ownership in the U.S. is often associated with patriotism, a constitutionally mandated last defense against a tyrannical government, or the storied history of westward expansion driven in part by rugged cattlemen.

That psyche — perpetuated by media, political and corporate interests — has led many to believe any restriction on gun ownership or use constitutes an attack on the fundamentals of what it is to be an American. Never mind that owning a gun today isn’t really about any of those factors.

Contrast that to a country like New Zealand, a nation of avid hunters and rugged outdoorsmen and women. Here, guns are seen almost exclusively as tools for hunting and sport.

We have gun stores in our town and many hunting suppliers. I’ve dined on local venison shot by hunter friends.

Guns are not seen as part of any personal or patriotic identity. So pulling semi-automatic weapons from circulation didn’t threaten the vast majority of New Zealand gun owners or deprive them of weapons they need to continue their hunting and sport shooting.

PERSONAL PROTECTION

Perhaps the biggest U.S. myth of all has it that owning a gun will make you safer. The most often cited reason for gun ownership in the United States is, thus,  personal protection.

But while gun manufacturers and their lobbying organizations will frequently promote stories of armed Americans warding off violence, actual data and statistics tell exactly the opposite story. Guns are far more likely to cause injury to their owners than to protect them.

In an average month, 52 American women are shot to death by an intimate partner. In situations of domestic violence, access to a gun makes it five times more likely a woman will be killed. Overall, access to a gun doubles the risk of death by homicide and triples the likelihood of death by suicide.

As a practicing physician in McMinnville, I treated many gun injuries, both accidental and intentional. I had patients who died of suicide by firearm.

I counseled women who’d been shot or threatened by gun-owning partners. I also counseled people threatened by others with firearms, whose ubiquitous presence gives the U.S. the highest rate of accidental firearm death and injury.

I have not dealt with any of those issues in my practice in New Zealand. Perhaps that’s because New Zealand does not allow legal ownership of a gun for personal protection.

People here do not walk around with firearms, concealed or otherwise. The police don’t routinely carry firearms here either. That makes everyone safer.

FEAR

After the Christchurch shootings, our prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, stated: “Many of those who will have been directly affected by this shooting may be migrants to New Zealand, they may even be refugees here. They have chosen to make New Zealand their home, and it is their home. They are us.”

Contrast that respectful sentiment of inclusion with the fearful and incendiary words U.S. President Donald Trump uses to describe the presence of migrants, words like “invade” and “infest.”

A culture of fear permeates life in the United States. It is a vicious cycle fueled by right-wing and counter right-wing groups, each trying to incite fear in foes. And reaction to those fears, often violent in itself, stoke the flames of further fear.

Last month, an American Psychological Association poll indicated 79% of U.S. adults are stressed over the possibility of falling victim to a mass shooting. It indicated 24% had changed the way they live their lives due to a fear of mass shootings.

This fear creates a feeling of helplessness or impotence. And for many, the response is to take up arms, to become that “good guy with a gun” of popular myth. They talk of armed teachers posting armed guards at churches or malls. But this mentality serves to increase rather than decrease gun violence.

In New Zealand, we live outside this bubble of fear. We didn’t realize how insidious the effects were until we freed ourselves from them.

Children here don’t worry they might be shot in their places of learning. Adults here don’t worry they might experience gun violence upon visiting a mall or attending a concert.

New Zealanders want no part of America’s culture of fear. In fact, many refuse to travel to the U.S. when given the opportunity.

If relinquishing the ability to own a semi-automatic weapon is the price they have to pay for freedom from fear, the vast majority of New Zealanders are happy to comply.

Responsible gun ownership for those who desire it will always be a part of being an American. It is, for better or worse, part of longstanding American identity.

But living in a new country, one that does not glorify guns, one whose approach to gun ownership is sensible and safe, has shown me there’s a better way. If Americans are going to fully honor their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, they have to recognize the current approach to guns and gun violence represents a significant barrier to exercising those rights.