Gun Violence: Mass Shooting In New Zealand

In the recent past, there has been tremendous increase in violence by guns. Nowadays, it is quite common to hear stories about people especially young adults or children engaging in crossfire. Most horrifying effects of gun violence are mass shootings, which unfortunately has been alarmingly rising of late. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has defined ‘mass shooting’ as someone who “shoots four or more people in a single incident, typically in a single location” (Krouse and Richardson, 2015). FBI has also released a study showing that “active shooting incidents” had increased at an average annual rate of 16 percent between 2000 and 2013 (FBI, 2013). Statistical analysis from 2014 to 2017 suggests that the incidence of gun deaths has increased by 16% (Gifford’s Law center, 2017).

[bookmark: _Hlk25695320]Analyzing the prevalence of gun crimes and mass shootings in different countries, the United States dominates other developed countries such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada. As per the study by Erin Grinshteyn and David Hemenway, firearm homicide rates are six times higher in the United States than the comparison countries (Grinshteyn and Hemenway,2016). Among these, New Zealand has the lowest gun crime rates with only 2.53 murders with firearms per million (Nation master).

The gun crime rate of any society has a strong relation with the number of guns possessed by its people. The reason for highest rate of gun crimes in the US could be the easy access to guns. Supporters of extensive gun use opine that owning guns will offer one’s safety. About 90% of citizens in America carry amination everywhere they go due to their insecurity and fear of one another. Banks are permitted to give free guns to customers after opening an account and the stores sell amination to anyone. Through this, even youngsters or students can get guns without permitted license and possibly can see it as a way to solve little issues.

A tragic incident shook New Zealand during on 15 March 2019.Two consecutive terrorist shooting attacks happened at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand resulted in the death of 50 people. The gunman live-streamed the first attack and a terrifying video spread all over the world. Many historic amendments in gun policy were put in to effect by New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern.

We selected Jacinda Ardern as our leader as she marked history by implementing gun banning law in New Zealand. Jacinda Ardern, in full Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern, was born on July 26, 1980 in Hamilton, New Zealand. In August 2017, she became leader of the New Zealand Labour Party and then in October 2017, at age 37, became the country’s youngest prime minister in more than 150 years. She did her Bachelors degree in Community studies. She entered politics even before completing her degree. Before entering politics, she spent her years in ‘Murupura’ a small-town best known for Maori’s gang activities. During that time, she used to see children without shoes on their feet or anything to eat for lunch which inspired her to do something for the society and enter politics (Wallenfeldt, 2019).

In her early life in 2005, Ardern embarked on an overseas experience by a long working trip to Britain. However rather than working in a London pub like everyone else or exploring the country, Ardern worked for two and a half years in the cabinet office of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, serving as an associate director for Better Regulation Executive. In 2007 she was chosen as the president of the International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY), a life turning position that made her to work in places such as Algeria, China, India, Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon.Ardern became leader of the Party New Zealand Labor Party and in August 2017 .In October 2017, at age 37, Ardern sworn to be the 40th prime minister of New Zealand.

Transformational leadership consists of 4 elements which are, inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation, and idealized influence (Riggio,2014). Jacinda Kate demonstrates transformational leadership style. In 2018 Jacinda Kate gave birth to her first child and became one of the very few world leaders to give birth to child while in the office. She became an inspiration and role model to women all over the world who multitask. When she was asked about work and family, she said there are other women who manage career and parenting and she acknowledges them all (The guardian,2018).

According to James M. Kouzes & Barry Z. Posner, “leadership is a relationship between those who aspire to lead and those who choose to follow” (Kouzes & Posner,2003). They did a thorough study on leader- constituent relationship and through interviews, case analyses and survey questionnaires, they discovered that leaders at all levels follow rather similar paths as they guide others along pioneering journeys. They were able to identify five practices common to most extraordinary leadership achievements they have forged these common patterns into “The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership”. These five practices of K&P model are Model the way, inspire a shared vision, Challenge the process, enable others to act and Encourage the heart. We have done a thorough study of our leader Jacinda Ardern ‘s life to analyze her demonstration of the practices of K&P model of leadership.

In this practice, leaders must find their own voices, and then they must clearly and authentically give voice to their values. Leaders set an example and build commitment through simple, daily acts that create progress and build momentum. Jacinda Ardern addressed the victims of the shooting as “They are us”. This is found to be the most inspirational act any leader can do to show compassion. Prime minister Jacinda Kate’s simple acts and expressions following the Christ church massacre received global appraisal. She showed the world true empathy towards the victims by visiting the families wearing a Hijab and speaking about the victims as “They are us” (Brennan,2019). Brennan also says, “It wasn’t about maintaining power, it wasn’t about appearances, it was about being there for her people in their time of need”. This indicates her emotional intelligence to engage with her people on a level that few other political leaders in the world would have been able to. CNN reported that, Ali Akil, a member of Syrian Solidarity New Zealand who came to Christchurch to support the community, said, wearing the hijab was 'a symbolic thing, it’s saying I respect you, what you believe, and I'm here to help' (Whiteman,2019). By Ardern’s order, on Friday 22 March, a week on from the attack, the lunchtime call to prayer did broadcast nationally, followed by a 2-minute silence. A few days after the event Jacinda Kate opened the parliament with the phrase “As-Salaam Alaikum” which is Islamic way of greeting. She has also promised to work on fast tracking visas for the families of victims and announced that the State would cover the cost of all 50 funerals (Salam,2019). Through her individualized consideration to the victims, their families and their community, Ardern exemplifies as an embodiment for ‘model the way practice’ in K&P model.

About the practice of ‘inspiring a shared vision’, Kouzes and Posner explain that “Leaders passionately believe that they can make a difference. They have a desire to make something better than it is today, change the way things are, and create something that no one else has ever produced”. Within a week after the attack, Ardern did something that many nations might find unthinkable. With the agreement of the conservative opposition party, she enacted immediately and swept changes to the country’s gun laws. She banned all assault rifles and military-style semi-automatics (Lester,2019). Due to the threatening rise in number of mass shootings around the world, many organizations are fighting for a stringent rule in gun use. However, amid all these calls for action, most world leaders show regressive political response when it comes to gun control. Here Ardern makes a difference by being proactive that, it took only 5 days’ time after the attack to impose gun control in her country. Its worthy to note that When Ardern tried to implement gun ban, she was not excused from the criticisms of gun supporters. But that did not stop her from inspiring the world by making a shared dream comes true.

According to K&P leadership model, Leaders always challenge the Process by searching for opportunities and by experimenting, taking risks, and learning from mistakes. This practice is called “Challenge the process”. After the mass shooting in New Zealand in 2017, Ardern quickly spoke on behalf of the grieving nation. She addressed the terrorist directly with the words, “You may have chosen us, but we utterly reject and condemn you” (Moore,2019). Shifting the global focus from the gunman to the victims is one example of Jacinda’s innovative handling of the worst terrorist attack in modern history. Speaking of the gunman, with anger in her voice, she refused to give him the notoriety he sought that, she did not even mention his name. She said, “He is a terrorist, he is a criminal, he is an extremist, but he will, when I speak, be nameless, and to others I implore you: Speak the names of those who were lost rather than the name of the man who took them. He may have sought notoriety but we in New Zealand will give him nothing – not even his name” (Wickstead,2019). The current trend of glamourizing the criminals and terrorists is well challenged by Jacinda Kate. This depicts her persistence in challenging the process to change the status-quo.

Through this leadership practice in K&P model, exemplary leaders use their power in service of others; they enable others to act, not by hoarding the power they have, but by giving it away. Jacinda Kate took a strong step to control propagation of hate and terrorism through social media. When the shooter uploaded real time footage of his attack in Facebook, Ardern made an explicit connection between Facebook to block the spread of the video. She even called fellow international leaders to put a control on the rise of extremism in social media. She said, “There are some things we need to confront collectively as leaders internationally. We cannot, for instance, allow some of the challenges we face with social media to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.” She spoke to British Prime Minister Theresa May about it that, “The tech platforms needed to take responsibility for spreading hate” (The Newyorker,2019). The New Yorker also reports that, when Donald Trump made a condolence call and asked what support the U.S. could offer, she told him, “Sympathy and love for all Muslim communities”. In both of the mentioned instances, Ardern has asked the other leader to act. When her first opinion was to put a halt on online propagation of terrorism, the second was to have mercy on Muslim communities which indicates Muslims who are struggling to immigrate from eastern countries. The practice of ‘Enabling others to act’ is well depicted here. The day after the incident, she went to Christchurch and took the leaders of all political parties, not just her own, with her (Chandler,2019).This sends a powerful message that she’s acting in the national interest not in her or her party’s political interests and it also indicates that, she is influencing others to act for the nation with her.

Although Prime Minister Jacinda Kate could pass a law to ban guns in the country within a week after the attack, she faced many challenges which include social, cultural, economic and political concerns.

Social problems in banning gun use was, there was a population who supported gun use in New Zealand called the ‘gun lobby’. The gun lobby are a small, highly-organized, minority of gun owners, including organizations such as the Council of Licensed Firearm Owners. They have successfully opposed any but the most minor changes to gun laws for decades.

(Gun control NZ, 2019). They criticized against decision of the prime minister because according to them complete ban of gun use was not feasible in New Zealand. The first factor attributing to this claim was, there was no exact estimation of the number of gun owners in the country and it can cause bias in the law implementation. Another factor against gun law was that, gun law can affect hunting, which is a part of New Zealand’s culture. Moreover, the Middle Eastern organized crime groups called ‘Motorcycle gangs’ are prospering in New Zealand and they announced loudly that they would not be surrendering their weapons (Tuccille, 2019). Despite the gangs and gun lobby, Ardern faced resistance from her political oppositional National party too. However, she could get them on board with a series of meetings and talks.

Though, economic problems regarding gun ban existed. Mr Paul Clark, owner of New Zealand Ammunition, one of the country's largest ammunition companies, said he believed many owners would attempt to hide their weapons (The Strait Times, 2019).To entertain the return of guns from people, government offered a buyback programme in which gun owners were asked to return the weapons to the government with reasonable compensation. It was planned to give the owners 95% of their gun’s base price, though, as per The Strait Times (2019), many people who owned multiple age-old guns got only 30 % of the market price of the guns. Despite the chaotic economy in gun ban, CBC (2019) reports that, so far, owners have turned in more than 15,000 newly banned guns as well as 64,000 parts and accessories. In return, the government has handed them $32 million NZ ($27 million). But nobody has a clear target for the program because authorities haven't kept track of the number of guns in the country. Tentative estimates put the total number of guns in New Zealand at about 1.5 million and the number of weapons that are now banned are 175,000. If those numbers are correct, it would mean less than 10 per cent of the banned weapons have been handed in so far.

The problems related to buy back policy have not yet solved. If our group would get a chance, we would have assigned a team to keep an accurate registry about the people who have returned the guns and which will be compared with the list of gun owners. If possible, community based home enquiries will be conducted to find owners who have not returned the weapons. Furthermore, the compensation will be based on the market price so that the owners of old and antique guns will not have a loss.

References 

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