Thread: COLFO ?

IMO COLFO's 'fair and reasonable'-titled strategy is just about the pitch-perfect way to counterattack the unfair and unreasonable.

A copy of my submission to the Royal Enquiry - a bit long for here but it is what it is.

We need to make sure the knowledge and experience about acquiring firearms and firearm rules are presented by responsible firearms owners. The massacre in Christchurch should not have happened but it did. The laws of our land that existed at the time were sufficient to prevent this but I believe the Police were underfunded to properly apply the law of our land as it existed without the need to have knee jerk reactions to this heinous crime.

Proposals to alter the Firearm laws will impose great restrictions on the law-abiding people of NZ. The statistics from the Police show that the vast majority of firearm related crimes are not committed by the correctly licensed people but by criminals or people with a criminal intent. Proposals suggested will impact on the honest people and not those who are creating the problems. When will Politicians listen to its people and understand that everyone rejects the actions of the perpetrator of the Christchurch shootings and yes we should have laws that prevent such occurrences. Yet we need to ensure that it is those who have the criminal intent that are penalised. To date I have not read of any such measures - all we here is how the Government plans to tighten up on those already taking their legal responsibilities seriously.

In our society and democracy, we abide by a genuine set of values and conditions and pay a penalty if we do not live up to those. Yet here we have a series of people trying to impose their lifestyle on me and not respecting my privilege to hold and use a firearm. I have not broken any laws - I have abided by all my license requirements and yet I will pay a price for the actions of the selfish few. In all this rhetoric has anyone explained or proposed a way to get all the illegal guns out of the criminal underworld? The answer is No. Why don't we focus on the people who are holding firearms illegally and remove them and the illegal firearms from society and at the same time support the good efforts of those who have committed to the correct process of firearm licensing and ownership. It does not make any sense to penalise the good majority to try to influence the less desirables. It does not work!

I also believe that if the Police were resourced more competently, they would be able to enforce the existing laws more effectively and possibly have avoided the Christchurch shootings. I know the process I have gone through on two separate occasions in obtaining my firearms license and in all cases the checking process was thorough and I did not mind the imposition. It was a privilege that I respected and now enjoy and protect this opportunity. I cannot call it a right here in NZ yet why should the majority of us suffer because of the actions of a few yet pay the penalty for their errors instead of the impositions being placed on them. We are approaching this back to front.

I see an upswing in support from the urban population to all this and that worries me. People in urban centres are removed from the realities of rural life or of those who enjoy the sport of rifle range shooting. Unless people correctly understand the implication over what they are talking about then a balanced approach must be achieved. This government needs to make sure that this balance is achieved and that those who have had little to no involvement with firearms do not dictate the direction we head as a nation. I am not restricting their right to express their concerns just as I am entitled to express mine however decisions by any government need to balance the good will of all its people in a serious, well considered and represented matters of fact. Rushed bad legislation is not what is required here.