VOICES
N.Z. MASSACRE: A Warning Alarm for U.S.
April 15, 2019 | ISSUE 10
By Ziaul Joy
It’s a habit of mine to check out my FB feed after waking up from the bed. Just like other days, on 15th March, when I open my FB it was all over the feed. I couldn’t believe that it was streaming in live. More shocking news was that tragedy like this took place in a country like New Zealand. If you ask me to name few peaceful countries in terms of less violence, New Zealand will be one of my top answers.
As my worry grew, I went to some reliable sites like New York Times & BBC to find out whether it was rumor or not. Unfortunately, the nightmare turned out in reality. With a downward face, I was wondering how devastating it is for someone to massacre a group religious people at their vulnerable stage of praying. Everything was preplanned. Friday has special prayer for the Muslim people. As expected, like other Fridays the mosque was full of worshipers praying Jummah. As I was watching the recording, the shooter fired hundreds of rounds of bullets at defenseless worshipers inside and outside Al Noor Mosque, where the majority of the bloodshed occurred. I started preparing myself for school with frustrations and disappointments on humanity.
After getting into the school, I informed a few teachers about this atrocity. I had conversation with Ms. Erin and Ms. Roxie. They were as much upset as I was. Both were supportive and encouraging. Ms. Erin informed me that our Mayor Bill de Blasio had taken some security processions around muslim communities. She also informed me that the president of New Zealand is a nice lady and the president immediately reacted to the incident. The Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described it as a brutal act of terrorism and called it, “one of New Zealand’s darkest days.”
As I was updating myself about the occurrence, I became aware that the Prime Minister has proposed a bill to fix the gun laws. The bill was proposed to limit high-power rifles in response to the terror attack on mosques. What’s more shocking news was that it took only six days after a mass shooting to enact a strict new gun law where the government in United State hasn’t done anything yet. Even though there were tragedies through the U.S. history that are like the New Zealand mass shooting, New Zealand has just shown us what a competent government can do. New Zealand's lawmakers have voted in an amazing number, 119-1, in favor of the new bill of banning advanced firearms.
It’s never too late to fix our problems. This incident can be another warning for us to fix our gun laws and learn from history to not let history repeat itself again.