I am proud of the way that most New Zealanders responded to the mosque massacres. ‘They are Us’ is a slogan any nation can be proud of.

I am far from proud about why it happened. An Australian came to New Zealand because our gun laws were slacker than where he lived. The history of the divergence is instructive and, for New Zealanders, disheartening.

In 1996, twenty-four years ago, the Port Arthur massacre in Australia, resulted in 35 people dead and 23 people wounded. The Australian government instituted comprehensive gun reform measures, including registration of all weapons and a ban on all types of semiautomatic weapons. Between 1979 and 1986 there were 13 fatal mass shootings in Australia. Researchers estimate that 16 mass shootings have been prevented in Australia by their law changes.

New Zealand government representatives attended the Australian government meetings but refused to sign up to the agreement. After all, it could not happen here, could it?

An inquiry a year later, chaired by Justice Thomas Thorp, recommended a ban on semiautomatic weapons and limiting the number of guns an individual could own. These and other recommendations were largely ignored.

A private member's bill in 1999 to implement the Thorp report recommendations did not even get sent to a Select Committee.

In 2004, the Arms Amendment Bill No 2, introduced in 1999, to establish gun registration, failed due to pressure from the gun lobby.

In 2012, the Arms Amendment Bill No 3, first introduced in 2005, to ensure compliance with a United Nations convention on manufacturing and trafficking illegal firearms, failed again because of the gun lobby, even though it did not include any measures to implement the Thorp recommendations.

But also in 2012, the Arms (Military Style Semiautomatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Act was passed. It tinkered with the definition of MSSA after some high profile and successful challenges to the law by gun dealers.

In 2017, a bipartisan report of a Select Committee on the illegal possession of firearms in New Zealand, recommended registration of guns and more restrictions on semiautomatic weapons. Paula Bennet, the Minister of Police; rejected most of the recommendations.

(Meanwhile Police Post-election Briefings regularly recommended better gun-control laws.)

On 15 March 2019, a licensed firearm’s owner, using legally purchased weapons, killed 51 people and injured 49 others in Christchurch. Within a month Parliament enacted a ban on most semiautomatic weapons and a buyback scheme. The gun lobby complained about the speed of the process and the burden on firearms owners.

An Arms Legislation Bill was introduced in September 2019. Among its proposals are a firearms register, tighter rules for gun-dealership licences and stronger penalties.

The bill completed its second reading in February 2020 and has yet to go through a clause-by-clause consideration and the third reading before it receives royal assent. National and ACT currently oppose the bill. NZ First has indicated it wants some changes. The government has yet to make time for Parliament to pass the legislation.

There are about a quarter of a million licensed gun holders in our population of five million. They are estimated to own between 1.2-1.7 million guns. About one in six households has at least one gun. I leave you to assess the balance in the political firepower of ordinary citizens and those with guns.

We have ended up with about 6.5 times as many guns per capita as residents of the UK and 2.5 times as many as Australians. (Americans own about 3.5 times more guns per capita than we do.)

This is not a plea to pass the Arms Legislation Bill, although one is never displeased if a column encourages others to take matters up with their MP, one way or another.

Rather, the column uses the example of gun control to illustrate an ongoing problem in so many policy areas. The national habit is to delay doing anything, putting it off until tomorrow. The eventual disaster causes a reaction – by which time it is too late.