The fourteen-year-old boy was buried on the same day that New Zealand's prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, announced a national ban on all military-style semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles; the kinds of guns used in the Christchurch massacre. One day later, Prime Minister Ardern joined a large crowd of fellow New Zealanders to listen to the Muslim call to prayer in a park vigil, showing solidarity with nearly 2 billion Muslims worldwide.

QUESTION: What policy mechanisms and political conditions allowed New Zealand to enact gun reform so swiftly, within days of the attack?

Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Gl…, loc. 796