When a terrorist massacred 50 people at two New Zealand mosques, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern immediately grasped the nettle. “I can tell you one thing right now,” she told a news conference. “Our gun laws will change.”

That’s what effective leadership looks like. New Zealand’s Cabinet has now voted to overhaul gun laws to ensure that citizens are as incapable at protecting themselves as the government is at protecting them.

Ardern promised New Zealanders, “Government failed in every way to protect the people, so now we want the people less capable of protecting themselves.”

Responsible, law-abiding gun owners stop more mass shootings than are allowed to happen in gun-free zones but people just don’t feel safe, so New Zealand has decided to make it more difficult for those people to do their civic duty.

“It’s not fair that you could protect yourself better than government can protect you so we’re going to fix that,” Ardern said. “We really just want to be the one-stop shop for protection, even if we’re hopelessly bad at it.”

This reform comes after similar legislation aimed at banning all semi-automatic cars from the road following a horrific 10-car pileup in Christchurch.

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Exavier Saskagoochie

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