Following New Zealand’s passage of the Arms Amendment Act in 2019 in the wake of an ecofascist terrorist attack on a Christchurch mosque that left 51 people dead, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern argued, “I could not hand-on-heart go down and face not just the media, not just the public, but the victims that had been left behind from this terror attack and tell them hand-on-heart that our system and our laws allow these guns to be available and that was okay. Because it was not.”

At the time, much of the world media and Democrats praised Ardern for implementing an aggressive gun-confiscation policy, suggesting that her actions had set a new standard for a “sensible” response to “gun violence” and would make her country safer as a result.

Well, fast-forward one year later and new data out of New Zealand reveals that Ardern’s action has had the opposite effect on crime and murder rates. According to Radio New Zealand, “Rates of gun crimes and killings using guns [are] at [the] highest levels in a decade in 2019,” and “there were 3540 occasions where an offender was found with a gun.” Furthermore, “In both of the last two years, the rate of deadly incidents involving a firearm was the highest it had been since 2009 … [and] the number of guns seized by police is also on the rise, up almost 50 percent on five years earlier at 1263.” It’s important to note that the Christchurch mosque attack was not included in these increasing crime figures.

Once again, gun-rights advocates have been proven right: Taking firearms away from law-abiding citizens does nothing to stop crime, and in fact most often has the opposite effect, as it strips the ability of the law-abiding to defend themselves. Tellingly, questioned as to whether he would comply with the newly passed firearms law, a New Zealand criminal gang leader stated, “Will gangs get rid of their weapons? No. Because of who we are, we can’t guarantee our safety.”

Ardern’s decision to elevate symbolism over Liberty has only opened the door to greater crime.