The allowance for ownership of a single round, bolt-action rifle serves the practical needs of gun ownership.

This allows for farm / home-kill to continue: you typically only slaughter cattle one at a time anyway, right?

For hunters, I've always considered semi-automatics as an overly excessive "cheat", if you rely on a machine gun to hit your target – you might just suck at hunting.

Finally, for gun clubs, you can still prove you're an expert marksman with a single shot – in fact it's more impressive to centre a target when it isn't a 'point and spray' affair. Taking the sport back to its roots of a calm, skill-based competition can be much more rewarding and might just be the right thing to re-invigorate the field. It may also help to bring back a level of respect for the weapons that we've clearly taken for granted.

Of course, going down this path precludes the option for personal hand-guns in New Zealand – which is perfectly fine by me. Concealed weapons are illegal here anyway and the only time pistols are to be used is at a gun range (carried in a lockbox).

If this attack wasn't carried out using semi-automatic weaponry, it could have been just as deadly with a pistol and the only difference in ownership is an endorsed license.

Some "pro-gun" Americans suggest after school shootings they should be arming teachers. They even tried to suggest Abdul Aziz was an 'armed bystander', proving why everyone should carry a gun. This is a complete fabrication, he mentioned in an interview that he picked up a gun that the attacker dropped. In fact, another report I saw suggested he ran at the gunman brandishing an EFTPOS terminal, so my message for the gun nuts in America is simple: Don't give your teachers guns, give them Credit Card machines and a little of Abdul's courage.