Speaker 1: Yoda.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is a summer special of
Speaker 2: The Front Page, The Enzid Herald's.
Speaker 1: Daily news podcast.
Speaker 3: While the Front Page is on summer break, we're taking
Speaker 3: a look back at some of the biggest news stories
Speaker 3: and top rated episodes from the podcast in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: New episodes will.
Speaker 2: Return on January thirteenth. Once it came into power, the
Speaker 2: coalition government signaled everything's on the table when it comes
Speaker 2: to a major shakeup of New Zealand's gun laws. The
Speaker 2: world praised us when we took swift action following the
Speaker 2: christ Church terror attack banning semi automatic firearms and assault rifles,
Speaker 2: but now a coalition agreement between National and ACT could
Speaker 2: see semi automatics make a return to gun range. Various
Speaker 2: stages of reform are currently being worked through by politicians
Speaker 2: in the US. April twenty marked twenty five years since
Speaker 2: the Columbine High School massacre, where two teenagers murdered twelve
Speaker 2: students and a teacher. Fifteen year old Daniel Mauser was
Speaker 2: one of those killed in the school's library. Daniel's father,
Speaker 2: Tom has spent the last twenty five years advocating for
Speaker 2: gun control in America, and he joined us on the
Speaker 2: front page to discuss why New Zealand shouldn't be complacent
Speaker 2: when it comes to firearms.
Speaker 4: Tom, For New Zealanders who might not know what the
Speaker 4: Columbine High School massacre is, are you able to give
Speaker 4: us a brief run through on what actually happened that day?
Speaker 5: But Mainstein Daniel was one of the victims of Columbine,
Speaker 5: and what happened in that tragedy was that two students
Speaker 5: plotted to kill as many students as they could at
Speaker 5: the school. They planted two bombs in the cafeteria and
Speaker 5: fortunately they didn't explode, but the two students that were
Speaker 5: outside with guns and started shooting students and then moved
Speaker 5: inside the school and shot dead ten students that were
Speaker 5: in the school library, and my son was one of
Speaker 5: the victims there, and a total of twelve students and
Speaker 5: one teacher were killed. And then the shooters, when they
Speaker 5: realized that they were not going to get out of that,
Speaker 5: they killed themselves. And that's what really got me involved
Speaker 5: in the issue, and in particularly it was the fact
Speaker 5: that three of the guns that were used by the
Speaker 5: shooters were obtained through a loophole in our gun laws,
Speaker 5: and just two weeks before the Columbine tragedy, my son
Speaker 5: asked me if I feel that there were loopholes in
Speaker 5: that national law that requires that you go through a
Speaker 5: background check by a gun, And then two weeks later
Speaker 5: he was killed with a gun that was purchased through
Speaker 5: one of those loopholes. So that's what really got me
Speaker 5: involved in this. I felt that I had to help
Speaker 5: close those loopholes in honor of my son.
Speaker 1: On April twentieth, nineteen ninety nine, two students called me
Speaker 1: needed months of planning by donning.
Speaker 6: Black trench coats and attacking their school.
Speaker 7: My secretary comes in and yells that there had been
Speaker 7: a report of gunfire and bombs exploring, and so I
Speaker 7: ran out of my office saw a gunman coming towards me.
Speaker 7: I remember hearing gunfire, and I remember glass breaking behind me.
Speaker 4: I know it's been twenty five years since that day.
Speaker 4: I can't even imagine what it felt for you as
Speaker 4: a father, First off, hearing that there had been an
Speaker 4: event at the high school that your son attended.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me how was that day for you?
Speaker 5: It was really a horrific day. Somebody at work I
Speaker 5: was trying to leave the office to go to a
Speaker 5: conference and somebody in the office said, you know, do
Speaker 5: you have any children that go to Columbine High School?
Speaker 5: I said yes. I said, well you should come into
Speaker 5: the conference room and watch television. There's something happening there.
Speaker 5: I watched it as the story unfolded, but I just
Speaker 5: didn't think that anything would happen to my son. I thought, well,
Speaker 5: there's two thousand students in the school, what are the
Speaker 5: chances and my son wouldn't be in any kind of trouble.
Speaker 5: I just feeling frankly, wasn't worried. And then you know,
Speaker 5: as the day went on and we weren't getting any
Speaker 5: work from my son, then I started getting more concerned.
Speaker 5: And then as the day went on we weren't getting
Speaker 5: any updates. The police said just wait, we'll be in
Speaker 5: touch with you. And we went to bed, not knowing
Speaker 5: if he was one of the victims or not. And
Speaker 5: it wasn't really until noon the next day, twenty four
Speaker 5: hours later, that we actually finally got official work that
Speaker 5: he was one of the victims.
Speaker 1: It was just terrific, and I know that Columbine.
Speaker 4: I mean, it was just such a wake up call
Speaker 4: for America. And the rest of the world. Really when
Speaker 4: it came to gun law reforms, how is that day
Speaker 4: shaped your work towards greater recognition for gun law reform,
Speaker 4: and how is that persuaded of at the last twenty
Speaker 4: five years.
Speaker 5: You know, I think the key was that, you know,
Speaker 5: it wasn't the first school shooting in America, but it
Speaker 5: was a very high profile one because of how many
Speaker 5: students were killed, the fact that there was a lot
Speaker 5: of video of things as they were happening that have
Speaker 5: happened in white, middle class America in the suburbs. But
Speaker 5: I think the fact that three of those four guns
Speaker 5: were purchased through that gun show loopol we called the
Speaker 5: gun show loophole that allowed these two young boys to
Speaker 5: go to a gun show and by these three guns
Speaker 5: using a friend who was eighteen years old, with no
Speaker 5: background check, no paperwork, no questions asked. You know, we
Speaker 5: were able to say to the people Colorado, does that
Speaker 5: make sense? I shouldn't everybody who goes to a gun
Speaker 5: show have to pass a background check in order to
Speaker 5: get a firearm? And you know, we put it to
Speaker 5: a vote of the people. Our state legislature wouldn't cass
Speaker 5: a bill that would close that loophole. So I was
Speaker 5: a lobbyist for that year working on that issue. I
Speaker 5: left my job for a year and lobbied, and when
Speaker 5: they wouldn't close that loophole, we took it to a
Speaker 5: vote to the people. You can do that here in Colorado.
Speaker 5: You can pass a law by a vote to the people.
Speaker 5: And seventy percent of the people and who voted said yes,
Speaker 5: close that loophole. So I think it really kind of
Speaker 5: showed that if you put something reasonable before the people,
Speaker 5: in a gun restriction, they'll pass it, and they'll do
Speaker 5: it when our own elected officials wouldn't do it. I
Speaker 5: think that was the big lesson.
Speaker 8: One year ago this month, Save Colorado was born, saying
Speaker 8: alternatives to the firearms epidemic we have witnessed here in Colorado,
Speaker 8: the extent to which that epidemic can spread, the devastation
Speaker 8: it can cause, keep our children safe, close the gun
Speaker 8: show loophole.
Speaker 1: Any one really own semi automatic weapons?
Speaker 5: Well, most firearms to they are semi automatic. I think
Speaker 5: it's a question of the ones that are the assault weapons.
Speaker 5: I mean, most handguns these days are semi automatic. I
Speaker 5: think the bigger issue is the assault weapons that are
Speaker 5: sorry rifles, and also high capacity magazines, because you can
Speaker 5: have a handgun that has a high capacity magazine, and
Speaker 5: that's especially a problem because you can fire off so
Speaker 5: many bullets before you have to switch magazines, and it
Speaker 5: allows you to get an awful lot of shots off
Speaker 5: in a very short period of time. And those are
Speaker 5: the things I think are the big problems, the assault
Speaker 5: rifles and the high capacity magazines.
Speaker 4: Of course, you may know what happened here in New
Speaker 4: Zealand the.
Speaker 1: Christ Church terror attack.
Speaker 4: What did you make of the government's gun law reforms
Speaker 4: after that attack?
Speaker 5: I thought it was a very very heroic act that
Speaker 5: people really reacted to something instead of just doing nothing,
Speaker 5: as generally has happened in this country after these tragedies.
Speaker 5: I certainly have to keep it in perspective that you
Speaker 5: don't have something like we have. You don't have a
Speaker 5: Second Amendment that says, you know, you have a right
Speaker 5: to bear arms. We couldn't do in this country what
Speaker 5: you could do unless we changed our constitution, our Bill
Speaker 5: of rights, and that's just not going to happen in
Speaker 5: the United States. But the way that New Zealand reacted,
Speaker 5: as did Australia after its great tragedy in Tasmania was
Speaker 5: the way of people saying, we who want to live
Speaker 5: like this, enough is enough. I think it was a
Speaker 5: very inspiring act that was taken.
Speaker 4: And our coalition government here is considering bringing back semi automatics,
Speaker 4: potentially making them return to gun ranges. But the issue
Speaker 4: here I see is that the christ Church terrorist was
Speaker 4: vetted and passed and used those semi automatics at a
Speaker 4: gun range. Oh yeah, So what would you say to
Speaker 4: politicians potentially looking at repealing our gun laws here?
Speaker 5: I would say, consider what the very thing that you
Speaker 5: just told me about that shooter. I know there was
Speaker 5: a terrible tragedy in Germany where they also have pretty
Speaker 5: tight laws and it's mostly for hunters, and you know
Speaker 5: once who shoot at the range, and the same thing
Speaker 5: happened there. The young man had that license and still
Speaker 5: went on a killing spree. And I think what I
Speaker 5: would say to them is, you know, I understand that
Speaker 5: there are people who have fun firing these weapons. I
Speaker 5: understand that I've heard that from a number of people.
Speaker 5: But we have to get beyond fund and we really
Speaker 5: have to consider the danger. We really have to consider
Speaker 5: the danger that things can really get out of hand.
Speaker 6: The attacker on fifteen match took a significant number of
Speaker 6: lives using primarily two guns. They were assault rifles and
Speaker 6: they were purchased legally on an a category unlicensed the
Speaker 6: standard license held by gun owners in New Zealand. The
Speaker 6: capacity of these assault rifles was then enhanced using duty
Speaker 6: plus round magazines, essentially turning them into military style semi
Speaker 6: automatic weapons. While the modification of these guns was illegal,
Speaker 6: it was done easily through a simple online purchase.
Speaker 4: And you bring up a good point with the magazines
Speaker 4: as well. I know that the ones that the christ
Speaker 4: Church terrorists use, for example, buying the magazine and then
Speaker 4: buying the guns separately wasn't illegal, but putting them together was.
Speaker 1: But what's stopping someone from putting them together?
Speaker 5: Loopholes? Loopholes, loopholes. That's often what killers do is they
Speaker 5: find loopholes in our laws and if you're going to
Speaker 5: give them an opening, they're going to take it. And
Speaker 5: I think we have to do all we can to
Speaker 5: close those loopholes.
Speaker 4: If someone's questioning why they can't own semi automatics or
Speaker 4: have larger magazines, or they argue that they're only using
Speaker 4: them like on farms or in gun rangers. I mean,
Speaker 4: if you could sit down with someone who's arguing to
Speaker 4: lessen gun laws in New Zealand, what would you say
Speaker 4: to them?
Speaker 5: First of all, I'd have to say if I was
Speaker 5: somebody who was living out on a farm or a ranch,
Speaker 5: I would not blame them for having a firearm. I
Speaker 5: won't condemn them for doing that, so long is it
Speaker 5: something like a hunting type rifle, an appropriate rifle for
Speaker 5: that setting you to shoot wild animals, or something like that.
Speaker 5: When it comes to especially handguns, I think it's important
Speaker 5: for people to keep in mind that the risk of
Speaker 5: harm in the household is far, far greater when you
Speaker 5: have a firearm in the household. That could be suicide,
Speaker 5: It could be accident, it could be a spouse argument,
Speaker 5: any number of things that can happen. That really kind
Speaker 5: of goes against those who say, well, I just I
Speaker 5: need it for self protect I would assume that you
Speaker 5: have an advantage in New Zealand and that you have
Speaker 5: much lower gun ownership than we do in the United States. Here,
Speaker 5: it's tough to argue against self protection when you have
Speaker 5: so many firearms. But if you don't have a lot
Speaker 5: of firearms, why worse in the situation by encouraging more
Speaker 5: gun ownership.
Speaker 9: Those firearms are already here. In fact, we have six
Speaker 9: six hundred people who have endorsements to be in possession
Speaker 9: of those firearms. So there's nothing new here. What we
Speaker 9: will be looking to do is ensure that we have
Speaker 9: a regulatory reform that increases compliance with the legislation and
Speaker 9: reduces regulatory burdens on some and that those that are
Speaker 9: laura abiding, that have been deemed to be fit and
Speaker 9: proper by New Zealand police are given the chance to
Speaker 9: partake and what is a normal way of life.
Speaker 1: New Zealand's gun laws.
Speaker 4: As part of the Arms Act, there was the introduction
Speaker 4: of a gun registry and gun owners felt really that
Speaker 4: they're against a gun registry and they felt that, look,
Speaker 4: criminals aren't going to be registering their guns anyway.
Speaker 1: Is that a kind of argument that you've heard over
Speaker 1: there as well?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, oh yes, there's a lot of arguments against registration.
Speaker 5: But what we have found, for example, is that if
Speaker 5: you register the firearm and you license any sellers, then
Speaker 5: that helps keep down the black market sale. It doesn't
Speaker 5: eliminate it, you know, completely, nothing will completely eliminate it.
Speaker 5: But if you don't have some of those kinds of
Speaker 5: steps in place, then you're just encouraging a black market. Then.
Speaker 4: I think the main issue over here is the potential
Speaker 4: of bringing back the semi automatic firearms that the christ
Speaker 4: Church terrorists used, and there's an argument here that there's
Speaker 4: just no reason to bring those back, And of course
Speaker 4: the Muslim community here in New Zealand have been pleading
Speaker 4: with the government not to take these actions because of
Speaker 4: course of the tragedy that happened here. In terms of yourself,
Speaker 4: you've lost, of course your son in a similar tragedy
Speaker 4: of school shooting, but a similar tragedy nonetheless involving firearms.
Speaker 4: Do you wish people would listen to you more in
Speaker 4: terms of what guns have the potential to do?
Speaker 5: Oh? Sure, That's a key thing for me, and I
Speaker 5: think that's why I'm resented by some people who are
Speaker 5: the gun rights activists, because I remind people that it
Speaker 5: can be anybody. I'm just an ordinary person who went
Speaker 5: through this pain. I recognize there are a lot of
Speaker 5: people who go through this kind of tragedy and have
Speaker 5: trouble speaking out. Because my son spoke out, I thought
Speaker 5: I had to also, So that's my inspiration, and I
Speaker 5: remind people this can happen to you. If you think
Speaker 5: this can happen to you, you're foolish. I've had quite
Speaker 5: a few people so I've met in course of my
Speaker 5: work who's lost a loved one say to me, I
Speaker 5: wish I had been involved in this issue earlier like you,
Speaker 5: but I never thought of what happened to me. I'm
Speaker 5: a reminder that it can happen to anybody, and we
Speaker 5: have to do something. Doing nothing won't solve our problem.
Speaker 5: Going backwards, as some people in New Zealand are considering,
Speaker 5: will do nothing probably make things worse.
Speaker 4: You've been doing your work for twenty five years now,
Speaker 4: so you're a wealth of knowledge. Is there anything that
Speaker 4: you would want to pass on to the New Zealand
Speaker 4: public when it comes to gun law reforms and legislation
Speaker 4: and how people feel about it.
Speaker 5: I think my main message would be, don't let yourself
Speaker 5: become like the United States. You know, a lot of
Speaker 5: this issue, usually as much as it's sometimes presented as
Speaker 5: issue of rights and freedoms, really a lot of it
Speaker 5: is about money. You know, many of the people who
Speaker 5: are pushing the issue of loosening gun laws. It's about
Speaker 5: money for them, it's sales, and we have to get
Speaker 5: beyond that. We have to look at the impact on people.
Speaker 1: And it must be so difficult for you especially.
Speaker 4: I know we've got televisions at work and we look
Speaker 4: up at the international news and we see something like
Speaker 4: another mass shooting in the US. There have been so
Speaker 4: many more school shootings as well in the past twenty
Speaker 4: five years. It just must be heartbreaking to you that
Speaker 4: there's been little to no change in people's views against
Speaker 4: gun laws despite this happening. I mean, must the US
Speaker 4: must know that the rest of the world is just
Speaker 4: going what is happening?
Speaker 5: We do and people on my side of the issue
Speaker 5: see it and understand it, as people on the opposite
Speaker 5: side of this issue just don't see it, or they
Speaker 5: have their excuses why they say, oh, we're just different,
Speaker 5: or oh it's not as bad as you say. It's
Speaker 5: really discouraging. It's at least been encouraging that in Colorado,
Speaker 5: my state, we've been able to do something, but very
Speaker 5: frustrating that at the national level so little has been done.
Speaker 5: We did see a few gun laws actually passed at
Speaker 5: the national level two years ago but it was the
Speaker 5: first time in thirty years that we had anything significant,
Speaker 5: and it was only after this tragedy that happened in
Speaker 5: the state of Texas, you know, where a lot of
Speaker 5: elementary school students were killed, that finally they were able
Speaker 5: to get something past. It shouldn't take that much.
Speaker 4: Thanks for joining us, Tom. That's it for this episode
Speaker 4: of The Front Page. You can read more about today's
Speaker 4: stories and extensive news coverage at enzed Herald dot co
Speaker 4: dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Siles
Speaker 4: with sound engineer Patty Fox.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 4: Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
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Speaker 1: Tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.