Micek: There’s will to act on guns in America. So why don’t we? | The Daily Courier

Six days. That’s how long it took New Zealand’s parliament, led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with the support of opposition leaders, to ban military-style assault weapons in the wake of a deadly rampage at two mosques in Christchurch that claimed the lives of 50 people. The speed with which the island nation acted was a triumph of political will in the face of unspeakable tragedy. And it holds lessons for American policymakers who have been utterly paralyzed in the face of mass shootings in our own houses of worship, schools and public spaces. Up front, it’s important to acknowledge that there are some material differences between New Zealand’s political system and our own. Notably, there is no equivalent to our Second Amendment, which means New Zealanders have no legal right to own weapons for self-defense In addition, New Zealand’s parliament is unicameral, which means there are far fewer political pinch points to derail such measures. Compare that to the American federal system where bills can be derailed at any point by powerful committee chair people, by influential and deep-pocketed interest groups, by the president himself and by the U.S. Supreme Court, which can make the ultimate call on a law’s constitutionality. Most of the time, the system works - protecting the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority. But when it comes to gun-control measures, from universal background checks to bans on bump stocks and high-capacity magazines, the exact inverse is true. A noisy minority, backed by a powerful lobbying group in the National Rifle Association, has effectively stymied passage of even the most basic modifications in federal law. Meanwhile, in the more than six years since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., America has seen 2,000 mass shootings - defined

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