by Keith Locke
It is unfortunate that the High Court has knocked back the Police decision to reclassify some rifles with pistol grips as military style semi-automatics (MSSAs). Justice Jill Mahon said legislation was necessary to implement the change.
The Greens will support such legislation. In fact, we want it to go further down the road towards registering all firearms, and not just MSSAs. The present system of registering firearms owners, but not what weapons they have, allows people like the Napier gunman Jan Molenaar to amass an armoury without the Police knowing.
Some gun lobbyists argue that general registration is bureaucratically cumbersome. However, we live in a computer age and it is not too hard to require gun traders to input details of sales into a database. In Australia the trading is supposed to be through registered traders, which makes recording who owns what guns relatively easy.
Published in Featured | Justice & Democracy by Keith Locke on Wed, March 3rd, 2010
More posts by Keith Locke | more about Keith Locke
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Its not unfortunate – its a simple matter of whether Parliament or the police make the law. And the court found, quite rightly, that it is Parliament’s job, and that the police cannot simply make it up as they go along. That’s a principle you should be supporting, not decrying, because it applies to a hell of a lot more than guns.
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Its not unfortunate – its a simple matter of whether Parliament or the police make the law.
I doubt Keith would disagree with you on that point. But you imply the police interpretation of the act was an obviously unreasonable one. If that’s true, fine, but was it?
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In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re not Americans.
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I suspect Keith meant from a practical point of view, rather than a constitutional one I/S. I agree with Keith that these particular weapons should be reclassified; and that individual weapons, rather than just owners, should be licenced – a much more sensible approach than the clamour to arm the Police that we are hearing at the moment.
But I agree with you that it is Parliament’s role, not that of the Police, to set the rules.
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I fail to see how general registration would have prevented Molenaar from acquiring weapons given that most of his guns had apparently been stolen and purchased on the black market. Surely there is no law that could prevent this.
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The court certainly seemed to think so.
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I particularly appreciate the first, oft ignored, phrase: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…”, which sets the intended context for the right to bear arms.
Unfortunately, the final text passed is ambiguous and can be interpreted to grant a personal right, as the Supremes did in 2008. The original intent seems clear from the Congressional debate at the time, however.
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Bzzt – wrong. a) There is no “freedom of choice” in the BORA; b) freedom of expression has very little to do with guns (and even if you think it is, restrictiosn on ownership and type are certainly a reasonable limit that can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society)
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If the Police had enforced the law as it currently stood – they might have prevented Molenaar from taking his course of action.
His firearms licence expired and the Police contrary to what they should do – did not follow up with him once his licence expired to collect what weapons he had at the time of his licence expiring – and as someone already has pointed out he acquired and held these weapons illegally – and how exactly would the law stop that? It won’t. There is a black market for everything including automatic rifles.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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@ idiot/savant I did not source the BORA 1990 as my area for argument though it does use similar wording under s14, the govt can easily over ride the bora by any statute as per s4. Freedom of expression does apply to guns, for instance of the antique form provided they are of a certain age you can buy them over the counter without any documentation. my use of word ‘choice’ comes from the common law that this case now acknowledges until statute changes it that you are allowed guns that have a means of asserting a slightly threatening appeal to them, the courts interpret the law remember , not create and this is their interpretation of our common law with some statute law referencing
and we do have gun control in nz, it’s far better than America where, as its been pointed out, we don’t live.
Btw why can’t people comment on your blog idiot/savant? No malice behind at all but It seems a little strange you comment on others but don’t let people comment on your own even if the extremist right and left do occasionally attack blogs
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The Police failed to use the existing legislation properly, and were caught out in a situation they did not expect to walk into. Changing legislation retroactively won’t change that, and wouldn’t have had any effect on the outcome if it had been done before the shoot-out. The guy was already in breach of the law.
stephenm -
a lot of pople run blogs as just a place to store posts so they can find them, and share them. Comments are not obligatory, and often unnecessary, even tho’ the practice may appear to be entertaining.
I/S is perfectly within his/her rights to run a blog however s/he wants to…
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There were 3 Officer’s conducting the search – the entire Molenaar situation would have been avoided if one of those 3 police officers had acted as a sentry to the scene, whilst the other 2 did a scene examination. Molenaar arrived at the address, saw the Police cars, went around the side and got a weapon. He wasn’t out walking with it!!
Pretty basic failure in Policing right there – never mind not following up his licence expiring.
As for registering/micro-chipping guns – still doesn’t deal with the firearms brought in illegally by yachts – happens more than you would think – esp pistols and automatic weapons.
Personally I’m all for registraion of firearms and to be licenced. I’m a owner of firearms and of course licenced. But like a lot of laws in the NZ if will be the lawfull that will oblige and follow the law – whereas those that thumb their nose at the law will carry on doing whatever they like irrespective of what MP’s draft into law.
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Much rather let Parliament frame the laws than the Police – and I’m sure deep down Keith knows this as well.
As it currently stands the Police record the serial numbers and type of firearms when you renew your licence, and with my most recent firearm – I have supplied the serial number, make etc to the Police when I brought it.
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@ katie
It is through the courts the police are best tested as well, yes they were unable to argue the application of the law in circumstance and yes it is true and i fully agree with the significant problems of Illegal ownership
However, I still want to hear from idiot/savant whether his reasoning is the same as yours on his no comment on blog thing
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so why the support for the people arrested in the anti terror raids?
http://newzeal.blogspot.com/2008/09/green-party-file-3-keith-locke-supports.html
ps I notice Keiths comments have been removed from wikipaedia.
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jh, you really are plumbing the depths when you link to wingnuts like Trevor Louden as your source.
As for the Urewera 17, I would suggest you wait until the evidence comes out in open court before commenting – remember that no-one has actually yet been convicted of anything in relation to those events. There are some very disturbing things about the police conduct and the lack of evidence to substantiate that conduct that I unfortunately cannot tell you at the moment because of (I hope only interim) court suppression orders.
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1. More E category license holders, meaning there would be more people in the market for military style rifles & therefore more demand.
If you’ve got the license, may as well use it.
2. Large amounts of thumbhole reclassified “E category” rifles will be upgraded with “real” free standing pistol grips instead of thumbhole grips, & large capacity magazines.
If you have a E category rifle with a thumbhole grip, why not legally modify it further to make it more comfortable and accurate with a pistol grip & add a 30 round clip for convenience.
3. As there are an unknown amount of these reclassified E category firearms, many will fall through the cracks and end up in the hands of criminals.
Who knows? no one does.
Remember it is not the Police approved, law abiding licensed firearm holders that are causing any issue what so ever.
So implementing such laws will actually “increase” illegal gun trade.
And here is how that works.
There are over 220,000 law abiding licensed firearm holders in NZ who, like all other law abiding citizens want a crack down on valiant gun crime.
These 220,000+ people are out there interacting with the gun industry & keeping an eye out for the police for any criminal activity.
If you restrict these people, or limit the number of these people, then you are only leaving it up to the police, who do not have time to even follow up on the current laws (Molenaar for example).
An Example.
Britain banned legal ownership of handguns, and now the http://www.telegraph.co.uk reports that there are 28 gun crimes committed every day in the UK.
If more restrictive firearms laws are the answer, then there would be no gun crime anywhere.
The police approved license firearm owners should be seen as an asset, not a threat.
Finally to end my ranting, exactly which proposed new gun law(s) would have stopped the Molenaar tragedy from occurring?
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An A category rifle cannot have a magazine capacity greater than 7 rounds, or appear to be able to hold more than 7 rounds.
So you have mistakenly used a photo of a MSSA rifle rather than a hunting rifle that will misled your readers and promote uninformed opinions.
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I felt an uninformed opinion bubbling up, but WBoyd’s alert caused me to squash it flat.
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Hi Mr Boyd
Keith’s trusty amphibious pal Frog found the picture using the magic of google. As with most posts the picture is a generic image. If you can send a link to the exact gun mentioned in the Herald story Frog is happy to change. Note the post doesn’t say anything about the Heckler and Koch anyway. We could have used a blunderbuss!
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Ruger 10/20 Target rifle http://www.guncity.co.nz/content.asp?syscmd=picview&picID=139816
Ruger mini 14 Target rifle http://www.guncity.co.nz/content.asp?syscmd=picview&picID=122964
And the ugly H&K SL8 http://www.guncity.co.nz/content.asp?syscmd=picview&picID=155676
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I’d also like to know why the greens support the police making up laws, consdiering the greens viewpoints on the police raids in teh urewereas…
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Can’t beat this.
http://www.wetanz.com/holics/media/4/Leila_Blunderbus_420.jpg
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Again.
http://www.wetanz.com/holics/media/DrG_Gallery/Blunderbus_framed_left_750w.jpg
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Tell me Keith, do you think murdering criminal scum like Molenaar (if he were still alive) would obey rules to register firearms if it were law? NO! Why? Because criminals don’t obey laws! Remember, he did not have a firearms licence, and was illegally in possession of the ones he had. A law requiring the registration of firearms would have not/not prevented him going on a killing rampage.
We have a good system whereby owners are vetted. Having more cops on the beat to target those who don’t obey laws is what we need. Please don’t attempt to restrict my ability to enjoy using firearms in a sporting manner.
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And specially absorbent pants.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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“As for the Urewera 17, I would suggest you wait until the evidence comes out in open court before commenting – remember that no-one has actually yet been convicted of anything in relation to those events. There are some very disturbing things about the police conduct and the lack of evidence to substantiate that conduct that I unfortunately cannot tell you at the moment because of (I hope only interim) court suppression orders.”
the affidavit is still on line…. ah… but you mean because the law bends over backwards to be fair what the law doesn’t allow us to see never happened?
PS “this is f’n serious. If nobody talks we all walk. ….”the filth” (police) are harder to ignore…” etc….
who said that and where?
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Gerry Brownlee to Phil Heatley?
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I didn’t realise Gerry was a Green party member (or Keith Locke supporter).
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Is this right?
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There are not many who do, jh.
Gerry hides his ‘green-ness’ waaaaaaaay down deep, under layers and layers of ‘apparent’ ignorance.
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“There are some very disturbing things about the police conduct and the lack of evidence to substantiate that conduct that I unfortunately cannot tell you at the moment because of (I hope only interim) court suppression orders.”
and the auditor general stated that the police actions ended “some very disturbing activities”
ps I understand it was council for the defence who released the affidavit (references to his client underlined) tut, tut!
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As above, I was another gun owning dobber when I lived in NZ, happy to ring the cops and chat about anything dodgy that I saw. Then I moved to OZ and don’t have a gun or license any more. In my experience gun owners are much more cautious and law-respecting than car owners, and consequently kill a lot fewer people (even proportionately).
If we could move the debate onto a more rational level guns would rarely to never come up, being limited to occasional rants from the plod about wanting to clamp down on the more and from the Garth McVicar crowd about wanting fewer gun laws, more guns and the right to kill anyone they don’t like.
The actual death stats for all gun deaths and injuries make guns look like a joke – you’re about as likely to be killed by a sea kayak as by a gun. I/S will no doubt have exact figures
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It was a total waste of money. It didn’t do what the proponents hoped it would do, and I understand they are seriously considering ditching it.
Registration doesn’t work. It is a red herring. Focussing on the cosmetics or mechanics of firearms are also red herrings. These things simply don’t work.
Using existing laws and penalties, rather than enacting new ones DOES work however.
Focus on the criminal misuse of firearms, and you might be on to something. Wasting time making new “paper” crimes, or claiming that a 7 round magazine is fine but an 8 round magazine is a terrorist weapon won’t win you any friends OR votes.
Get out and talk to law abiding shooters rather than vilifying them and using them as political footballs.
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Mr. Molenaar’s standoff with police at Napier could not have been mitigated by any of the regulations you’ve hinted at. The firearms he used were stolen / illegal firearms. He did not have a firearms licence. He was a drug dealer. Drug dealers would not register their stolen / illegally smuggled guns.
There is no rational sense in having a gun register for the purpose of determining if a person is “amassing an arsenal of weapons.” It is extremely difficult to fire more than one firearm at a time and impossible to fire more than two firearms at a time; so there is no point in knowing who owns lots of guns because there is no greater risk factor arising from the quantity of guns owned. I own more guns that David Grey at Aramoana and I do not consider myself to have an unhealthy interest.. in fact I am a responsible law abiding citizen. It is also invalid to say that we need to know that information to identify persons who have an unhealthy fascination towards guns.. there is no evidence that such a person has a penchant to own more or fewer guns and such a person, in any case, shouldn’t have any guns and that comes back down to an individual licensing issue rather than registration. Overseas experience clearly demonstrates that gun registers do not work, even with the availability of modern information systems. Tracking every gun is impossible as this simply cannot be done with stolen guns, smuggled guns, homemade guns and guns that are made up from parts of otherwise retired guns. Why would you want to track legal guns owned by responsible, law abiding licensed citizens when these guns and their owners rarely if ever cause any problems?
Your position, illustrated by your comments on your blog, is irrational, illogical and misconceived.
We are particularly concerned that you appear to be supporting the Commissioner of Police and criticising a High Court Judge over what is fundamentally a constitutional issue about who the lawmakers in New Zealand are; whether that is Parliament or the Executive. Why on earth would you put yourself up for election as an MP if you believe we can all sit back and let the Police write our legislation?
Richard Lincoln
President
National Shooters Association
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I assumed that all guns were registered already, and am surprised to learn that the firearms license is the only requirement
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Even the Thorp report, when discussing the situation in the USA, referred to it as “the wild west”. This line is from Hollywood – it isn’t based on evidence.
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Sooner or later ‘anti-gun’ politicians will begin to learn that if they open their uninformed mouths it will lead to an avalanche of response from ‘Fit & Proper’ people – who remember what they say at election time – and they lose not only personal but party votes.
The ‘double whammy’ is the best aspect of MMP!
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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Have I upset the nappiests @5:55?
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Because, as was pointed out, it has been tried elsewhere in the world and failed. Dismally. It is an expensive way to divert police funds from actual crime fighting and prevention initiatives.
What works is to licence people and ensure they comply with the existing rules.
We don’t need more laws that won’t be enforced. Don’t forget, Molenaar was already in breach of the law. Registering guns wouldn’t have made a scrap of difference there. He should never have had any of the guns he had – and many of them required registration already.
If you truly want to combat gun crime, focus effort on gun criminals. And this means, by and large, gangs and drug dealers – many of whom are already known to police.
Yet more bureaucracy to manage a group of people who have already been assessed as “fit and proper” (and this “most likely to obey existing laws”, Greenfly – it has nothing to do with voting preferences!) will achieve nothing.
As mentioned above – talk to shooters. I think you will find they share your objectives of reducing gun crime. So long as it is *actual* gun crime you are talking about. Not some ideological stand-point.
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We should look to other countries that have implemented registration laws and see how effective they are, and how costly it is to maintain.
And then we can debate on the merits of the idea.
Making a quick google search has returned some interesting reading.
Such as this Canadian MP who now wants to scrap their registration law due to incredible cost and ineffectiveness.
http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/publicate/Columns/2009/nov9.htm
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jh
you’ve been told on multiple occasions that you are skirting around the suppression orders, which the Solicitor General takes seriously enough to have charged the Fairfax Media team who published excerpts of the supressed evidence, with Contempt of Court.
It was establised at that trial that the ‘leaked’ affadavit had originated from the author’s office (ie: Crown Law version, one of the Crown Law staff was put on the witness stand to testify to that effect). The Police, in cahoots with media at the Dominion Post, were responsible for the publicity that occurred.
During the trial, the Judge required the affadavit to be taken down from Stuff’s website, and they were castigated on day two of the trial, because Court staff had searched and still found the webpage up.
That document was supposed to have been removed from publication on the web, as it contained serious errors which were germaine to the Solicitor General’s decsion in favour of dropping the TSA charges in the first place.
Now I’m going to stop explaining the parameters of this suppression order to you, as I can’t legally discuss anything else about this case that is relevant to refuting your query.
Nor can anyone else.
You’ll just have to settle for waiting until the full Court case has run it’s course, and the Police and Media are required to publish the correct information.
Rather than biased supposition from idiots who don’t actually know anything….
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Registers just record the property of the ‘fit & proper’ – they have no effect upon the unlicenced who go about their business without regard for either registration or licencing. As such the money spent on the law abiding is essentially wasted and diverted from policing of the lawless.
Technical offences proliferate where errors creep in to the ‘registration’. The present system of recording MSSAs, Restricted Weapons and Pistols needs constant maintenance – and the goodwill of all parties – to keep it anywhere near sound. That only covers a very few thousand endorsed licence holders.
History in Germany, Cuba the UK, Canada, Australia and dozens of other countries, has proven that registration eventually leads to confiscation – once all Lawfully held firearms are registered someone inevitably comes along and says “They should not have that sort – lets legislate against that type – and confiscate them!”
The Cartheginians were conned into having their swords removed from them by the Romans – who then left not one stone stading upon another; then plowed salt into their fields to destroy their competitors waaay back.
It is creeping tyrany of the worst sort that many arms owners fear – the destruction of their ‘gun culture’ of hunting and target shooting by the culturaly insensitive – who then would call upon them to defend the realm in case of tumult – as the poor and disarmed British had to do in 1940 as a nation disarmed by ‘gun control’ after WWI.
Such are the lessons of history.
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Youll find that alcohol feeds 100 times more violence and death in NZ than guns, along with cars (what was the road toll last year ?? 500 people??)
If only the anti-gun, greenies, media and misinformed ignorant public of NZ would put half as much energy into making a difference in this area then mabey some lives would actually be saved.
Fact is there are alot more bigger problems than guns in NZ.
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Of course the issue is not really about guns, it’s what people do with them. Why would someone want to make the issue about the gun and not about what people do with them?
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so…’anti-aircraft gun’…on which side of the debate does that fall?
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Heylin – I take it, from the points you made, that you are pro-cannabis?
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Osama bin Laden’s side, ‘fly!
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Keith, I really do hope you and your supporters can now see how illogical your propositions are. We don’t need more laws to restrict the freedoms of good people, we need to get tough on the scum that are an actual threat to our beautiful country.
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scum eh!
Are ‘scum’ likers or dislikers of guns?
In whose camp do they belong?
(kiwireader, you’ve solved a puzzle that’s been nagging me for yeers!)
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How much cannabis related crime and death do we have in NZ anyway that would actually warrent the level of spending and attention we currently devote to it ?
Youll find that alcohol feeds 100 times more violence and death in NZ than gunscannabis, along with cars (what was the road toll last year ?? 500 people??)
If only the anti-cannabis conservatives, media and misinformed ignorant public of NZ would put half as much energy into making a difference in this area then mabey some lives would actually be saved.
Fact is there are alot more bigger problems than cannabis in NZ.
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The idea that the world can be divided into “good guys” and “bad guys” is the stuff of John Wayne Westerns and the use of this premise leaves many of the arguments on this thread meaningless.
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Keith’s comment “allows people like the Napier gunman Jan Molenaar to amass an armoury without the Police knowing” is just absurd nonsense. Being the “bad guy” he was, Molenaar was already breaking the law by possessing firearms when he kicked off his rampagee. You are a complete fool if you think that if the law at the time required him to register all of his guns (without a licence remember), he would have complied.
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kiwireader, i was not commenting on Keith’s views nor expressing an opinion on the licensing of individual firearms, but merely pointing out that criminality is not a black and white thing. By your argument Molenar was a “good guy” until 2002 when his license expired at which time he transformed into “criminal scum”. From what i understand David Grey legally owned his firearms, was he a “good guy” or “criminal scum”?
How many firearms did Molenar collect while he was still a “good guy”?
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ahhhhhh! So he had been licensed!!
Sneaky kiwireader_nz!!
Tut, tut!
Nice fisking, solkta.
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In the 2nd article to which Keith links:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Politics/Story/tabid/419/articleID/103724/cat/74/Default.aspx
“Molenaar had held general and collector’s firearms licenses but was one of the 50,000 who saw them expire in 2002.”
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He lived about 1km from the Police Station – it has been reported – but when he failed to re-new his Licence it appears that no checks were made despite the ‘registration’ of C category firearms recorded against his endorsement. C category firearms are generally pistols, sub-machine guns and or machine guns – yet no follow-up investigation appears to have taken place between 2002 and the murderous incident.
During the search of his house (for drugs?) it ha sbeen reported that at least one firearm was found – the rest were not. Some how Molenaar was allowed to wander back into his house, retrieve a very large firearm ( an ex-Army SLR MSSA rifle) and come back out to kill Snow (it is understood he was a trained AOS officer) and wound two other Policemen and a bystander.
To sumerise – Moleaar was known to have failed to renew his licence in 2002 – it was known that he had C category firearms as recorded between 1992 and 2002 – the penultimate search failed to find them (perhaps because it was a drug search??) and the SLR was easily accessible to him.
A litany of systemic failures – despite the probability he still possessed known and recorded C category firearms when he failed to renew his licence in 2002 … ‘registration’ did nothing to help at all as he was never held to account for not renewing his licence in 2002.
A litany of errors ending in tragedy.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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Or for that matter the factory farming of vegitables for subsequent clear-felling to sustain those who do not eat meat!
Perhaps the next item under consideration for banning would be the very computers we dare to exercise ‘free speach’ with? After all – the pen is mightier than the sword!
Or perhaps ban breathing – which expells the extremely dangerous CO2 that we are being told is in danger of over-heating the Planet!
I know! Ban DRUGS! Now that has really worked hasn’t it?
PS: I do not drink alcohol – or smoke anything.
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DoC have consistently wanted to eradicate all introduced wildlife species in our national parks.
This has only been prevented by the hunters, hunters who want to preserve the animals as an asset for NZ and for our future generations.
This has so far stopped government funded mass slaughter.
If it was not for the hunters there would be a no more Deer, Chamois & Tahr etc.
And unless you are a vegetarian (who does not wear leather shoes, jackets or belts), then you probably do not mind other people doing the killing for you.
Just as long as the meat you buy in the supermarket is packaged so that it does not resemble the animal it came from.
Hunters go out into our native forests and sleep rough for days, just for the possibility of bringing meat home, obtained from an animal that has had a life running free.
And is able to escape because it is not fenced in.
Have you ever thought about the captive animals farmed and slaughtered solely so you can have sausages stuffed with cheese for your bbq
I would imagine that being trucked off without food or water, and then forced up a runway into a building that reeks of death is far more traumatic.
And once again, banning the police approved law abiding licensed firearm owners guns will not make you safer in your home.
England took all the licensed gun owners hand guns away, and surprise surprise criminal gun crime kept escalating.
Personally I would love to see all the illegal guns taken away from the criminals, but our MP’s have to do more than just make up new laws targeting the already law abiding for this to happen.
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The problem seems to me to be the unlicensed gun holders, rather than the licensed ones. More police resources should be going into reducing the illegal gun trade in NZ. How many prosecutions have the police done for illegal possesion of a firearm in the last ten years?
The proposed police law change was never going to work. It is easy to change the stock on a gun to ensure it fits with an A cat license. I am more concerned that a person with an A cat licence can have as many guns as they like, yet the police only do a safe storage check when you apply for a licence or when you renew it after ten years or change address. Perhaps more frequent checks of gun storage would be a more useful law to (legally) introduce.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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yet you go on to advocate more checks upon those with licences – surely what is needed is a complete sort-out of the un-licenced. Perhaps every house-hold with-out a F/L holder should be visited, searched and the occupants subject to the most rigourous questioning – to find those firearms held by the unlicenced?
To check the about quarter of a million licence holders would be a full-time job for over 100 police personel – doing nothing else but check on licence holder who by-and-large do keep firearms secured!
Better they be used to track down ‘real’ criminals?
Mark – I assure you that “drunken bums, firing at anything from cars” do not retain their firearms licences for very long – if they indeed have licences in the first place!
BTW: ‘intimidating’ people is pretty much a ‘zero-sum’ game IMHO!
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“Zero Sum???” People can only Be intimidated – or refuse to be.
I don’t seek that – just interested in points of view.
And you are anonymous here (unless yr ‘uman rights have gone – something to consider in modern day NZ) – so why react?
Well the Poster on the Local Arms Officer’s window ‘suggests’ that alcohol and guns ‘may not mix well’.
Compare that with our message to drink/drivers and you be close to what I’m pointing toward.
Apologies for hurt feelings etc.
But many of us who go bush, do so for the serenity – nothing serene in a gunshot hey?
Two opposite uses for one resource.
The Fact is we won’t get Law reform because it costs Votes – any debate about correct/incorrect doesn’t rate at all. imho.
Mark
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A little slanderous maybe & does not describe anyone I know.
But if anyone see’s such behaviour, I hope they call the authorities.
“Give the animals a fair go – catch ‘em in your teeth I say!”
I just wonder what the public reaction would be if someone did actually manage to catch and kill an animal with their own teeth.
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BTW: more and more hunters now use ‘silencers’ on their rifles to reduce the ‘offence’ that seems to be given to the ‘delicate’ ears of those who seem to think the Far Places should belong to them alone and advocate ‘banning’ the hunter’s necessary equipment.
Votes – aye! Firearms owners have long slumbered as creeping ‘banning’ takes place but are now starting to realise that they must involve themselves in politics to preserve their ‘culture’ … and take ‘Political revenge’ (at the ballot box!) upon those who are culturally insensitive to their ancient, long established way of enjoying ‘serenity’ – and GST-free meat!
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Well I didn’t decide to give up hunting til 1994 – a personal choice.
I’m not here to advocate the further restriction of peoples responsibly excersising their rights and freedoms.
One final Personal Point of View from Me (things to do)
Guns are Fugly Things.
You are equally entitled to take them to Bed whatever….
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I am sure that a recourse to the Judicial Review process is undertanken with great reluctance and only after ‘unreasonable intransigence’ from Police HQ who proceed with expensive advertising campaigns which try and drive owners of ordinary ‘sporting configuration’ semi-automatic firearms (many simply goat, bunny and possum pest hunting rifles plus others used for paper targets) into another category of firearm ownership.
A mess has been created which will take ages to resolve and the credibility of Police HQ has been sadly damaged amoung the most fit & proper of people in society.
There are hints that parliamentarians will now be approached to ‘make it Law’ in an attempt to salvage Police HQ pride … and force ‘nasty’ firearm owners to comply with what has been described by a Judge an inconsequential Police opinion. We trust that Parliament will not fall prey to ‘knee-jerk’ reaction legislation.
The Police themselves previously made a atatement that it was not an issue of Public Safety but simply something they thought they should do to tidy up some loose ends.
It would seem the recent Judgement clearly lets them know such ‘tidy ups’ MUST be done within the Law.
A sad day when that must be brought to Police attention by costly resort to the High Court by fit & proper firearms licence holders to protect themselves from casual criminalisation by changes in Police ‘opinion’.
I sometimes do dispair – but for my faith in the Judiciay.
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“The sorts of people who are going to carry and use knives are the sorts of people who could easily circumvent any prohibition.”<<<<<
Yet in the same doesnt apply to firearms for some reason ? Do you think if we had tougher storage requirements and licensing for knives then we could reduce the problem ?. Interested to here your logic or have you just contradicted yourself ?
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I think you’ll find the attitude you describe cuts across all kinds of Rights we have taken for granted for so long.
NZ is a worry in that regard – it sometimes seems to me that our whole society will wind up divided, criminalised and impotent.
We only need continue down this same path…
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a) your views on current gun control laws in NZ (they work, they dont work)
b) where you think they should be (ban guns or tighter licensing)
c) what advantages in crime reduction do you see (considering 12 out of 88 Homicides in NZ involve a firearm) ie how you see us reducing 12 to zero ??
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And there you go.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10660886
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The police didnt know he amassed an armoury? When does a collection become an armory? And actually nobody paid Mr molenaar a visit after his license was expired to check if he had any firearms. Surely prudence suggests that this would have been a good idea?
Emotive language still fails to counter act the facts. poor effort.
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Bit late for registration now as the horse has bolted. Many people said removing registration and control over individual guns was a bad idea. It has proven to be so. However putting the Genie back in the bottle may well be impossible as there is now no way of assessing the ownership of guns and the number out there.
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