Our legal restrictions are much tighter and we don't have a gun lobby that holds Parliament captive. Nor do we have a profound cultural need to own, collect, display or defend guns, and we don't resolve domestic and civil conflict through the wholesale use of firearms.
Why are we different from the US?
Partly it's because of early steps taken here to restrict the flow of guns to Mori - Pkeh supporters of such restrictions agreed that all firearms needed to be limited, and Parliament was then able to eventually pass tough laws to that end.
But the journey to that point was a complex one.
During the early days of Pkeh settlement, many ordinances were passed to prevent the supply of guns to Mori. While some restrictions were placed on Pkeh, most were directly aimed at "hostile natives" because, for early Pkeh, the thought that Mori might be acquiring weapons was a frightening one, especially as relations between our two peoples deteriorated.
During the 1840s, by some estimates, the rate of gun ownership among Mori was high - about one firearm per warrior. Early governors sought to limit further supply, and George Grey's Arms Ordinance of 1845 tried to cut the flow of guns to Mori fighting the northern wars.
When those wars were over, more restrictions were passed, stopping Mori from arming themselves, even for hunting or self-defence. However, as Grey conceded, as long as Mori had kauri gum to sell, suppliers of guns could always be found.
In the mid-1850s, Parliament wondered how it might exercise further control over Mori, who still owned most of the country and made up the bulk of the population. One sure way, it decided, was to monopolise the supply of guns.
But some provinces were intent on relaxing their rules. In Canterbury, Pkeh settlers had bristled at the restrictions and, with few threatening Mori living in the south, the rules were relaxed in 1857.
But these relaxations caused an important national debate about firearms. Some argued that all New Zealanders should have free access to guns - much like in the US today - while others were worried that any relaxations could see Mori engage in large-scale gun purchases. Opponents of free access to weapons won the debate. In 1860, an Arms Act was passed which set strict policing rules for the sale of firearms, especially to Mori who were now thought to be universally armed.
The outbreak of war at Waitara seemed to confirm this - that Mori, fully armed, were engaging in provocative behaviour. But disarming them would not be easy because, for Mori, the issue was self-defence, and settlers had some sympathy because self-defence was a centuries-old right of all Englishmen. Strangely enough, the Mori right of self-defence was a constitutional right, having been enshrined in Section 71 of New Zealand's 1852 Constitutional Act.
When the British Army withdrew from the Land Wars after 1864, New Zealand set up its own armed constabulary, which took the war to Mori still in the field, and Mori tribes supporting the constabulary needed to be armed.
As these wars ground to a halt by 1872, the constabulary was converted to an armed police force. Armed raids against Mori did continue but no gun violence occurred, mainly because of Mori restraint. The Government was also intent on confiscating any weapons found.
Mori were aggrieved at losing their weapons because they were needed for hunting and "chasing the birds away from the crops", as one chief put it. But Maori did not see the owning of guns as integral to developing a new relationship with the Government, unlike native Americans in the US, where gun violence escalated with tragic consequences.
In the end, it was Whanganui's own John Ballance who, as Native Minister, made a most critical decision. When he decommissioned the redoubts and stockades still standing on our frontier in the mid-1880s, he decided the armed police force should no longer carry weapons.
As one historian wrote, "thereafter, the rifle would be replaced by the rubber truncheon".
-Danny Keenan is a Mori historian who lives in Whanganui. His research interest is Mori/state relations in NZ in the 19th century.
