After Christchurch terror: Silent cheer as Government bans semi-automatic guns

PM Jacinda Ardern announced what the country had hoped to hear - semi-automatic weapons will be banned.

Military-style semi-automatics and assault rifles will be banned.

As Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the stronger new gun laws yesterday, there was a silent cheer across the country.

NZ's gun rules, perceived as soft by many, had been under scrutiny since last Friday's mosque shootings in Christchurch.

Attorney-General David Parker had said over the weekend that semi-automatic guns would be banned and 70,000 people had signed a petition against these types of weapons.

Ardern made good on that promise in a continuation of the exemplary leadership she has shown since news of Friday's tragedy broke.

As we said this week - something of this awful scale is new to NZ.

It is a shame Gun City, whose move to Napier is imminent, didn't follow the lead of retailers like Hunting and Fishing and pull semi-automatics from the shelves.

Instead, it waited until Ardern did it herself, yesterday.

Ironically, Gun City has none to pull - it has sold out of semi-automatics, it has revealed.

The anti-gun feeling right now is unprecedented.

But so is our support for our Muslim whanau.

These are unusual times.

We have never been through this as a country; the levels of sensitivity have shifted. And rightly so. What we all had a tolerance for at the start of last week, changed in a day.

We are also showing new levels of understanding, empathy and support.

Yesterday, Hawke's Bay Today stated that the majority of this country rationally, perhaps even reluctantly, accept that weapons have a place in society.

But in a peaceful, non-military democracy, military-style weapons have no place in the day-to-day hands of individuals.

We welcome and applaud the news they will be banned.