4chan Trolls New Zealand Firearm Turn-In Registry

At least until mid-afternoon Friday, March 22 (local time) anyone in the world could register online to hand-in their prohibited firearm in New Zealand. The process was intended to be an automated, convenient way to schedule voluntary confiscation (sort of like Jews emailing the SS for a free ride to the boxcar), but they didn't expect the kind of reaction they would get from around the world. As you may or may not be aware, New Zealand banned the ownership of semi-automatic firearms this week following the Christchurch mosque shootings.

4chan.org, one of the last bastions of near-absolute free speech on the Internet and often incorrectly blamed for incidents like last week's mosque attack, quickly took to "shitposting" on the New Zealand police's online submission form. Many members of the /k/ weapons sub-imageboard did not take too kindly to the tyrannical overreaction of the Kiwi government banning semi-automatic firearms practically overnight. As you can see from some of the posts, many decided to show their displeasure for the ban.

As of Thursday evening (US time) the ability for non-New Zealand geolocated IP addresses to update the form was disabled. Update: it appears that by close-of-business local time, ​all online police forms of all types have been suspended.

American gun culture is unique. It is a product of violent rebellion against the same monarchy and government that Australia and New Zealand derive their nationhood from. Unlike those countries, North American settlers faced large, dangerous animals (bears, mountain lions, moose, etc.) and hostile native tribes that violently competed with Europeans for land. All of these factors in combination with a sparsely populated frontier with little law enforcement and a western society that tolerated casual violence combined to create the United States' unique gun culture.

American's natural distrust of authority and long history of gun ownership make this country far different from New Zealand. The cultural and geographic factors "down under" that necessitated gun ownership (along with a history of harsh policing, generally in Australia) disappeared as the countries urbanized and modernized. Self-defense from armed criminals is not seen as a valid reason to own a gun, even socially, and defense of tyranny is clearly not a priority in either country.

Hopefully for the few gun owners who believe in defending against tyranny and oppression in lands that seem so far away from everything will benefit at the jab in the eye American and international gun owners have done the the New Zealand police.  

Editor's note: I'd like to point out that other media outlets were late to the party. As far as I can tell, we were the first to report to the normies what the doings over at 4chan were.