Thread: Shooting: The sport all of us enjoy - do your part in preserving the ability to do so

I'm sure arms officers around the country are keen on a huge increase in their workload.

It's about what I expected i.e. meets the requirements of the hidden agenda, not the stated agenda which has been put in the too hard basket. Hidden agenda being to progressively disarm the populous. That is the legal, law abiding populous.

I think we all pretty well knew the outcome would be like this.

If only we could all vote with our feet on this single issue.

Originally Posted by Beavis

I'm sure arms officers around the country are keen on a huge increase in their workload.

Mad keen bro, I'm still waiting on an import permit for my stock lol.

It is also terrible what they listed under Criminal Offending

Criminal offending with firearms

12 that it review the penalties in the Arms Act 1983 (page 18).
13 that the law be amended so that where a dealer has committed an offence under the
Arms Act 1983, the court must treat this as an aggravating factor at sentencing (page 18).
14 that the Police undertake further work to determine appropriate security standards
for “A” category firearms (page 19).
15 that the law be amended to make it clear that the secure storage requirements must
be met to the satisfaction of the Police, before a licence or endorsement can be issued
(page 19).
16 that it extend the power under regulation 29 to allow the Police to enter premises
to inspect the security of “A” category firearms (page 19).
17 that the Arms Act 1983 be amended so that failure to comply with the storage
regulations must result in revocation of a firearms licence (page 19).

How is point 14, 15 or 16 criminal?

Originally Posted by Beavis

I'm sure arms officers around the country are keen on a huge increase in their workload.

Unfortunately, when you are overloaded already any additional load has no effect. You just adopt an attitude of "I can only do so much in an 8 hour day". Anything not done that day just gets pushed fwd.

It's beyond obvious they don't care about dealing with criminals and the misuse of firearms the logical way mentioned above ^^^ This only effects the law-abiding, plain & simple.

As for this "registration is un-enforceable but we'll do it anyway scheme" what on earth will that lead to I wonder??

Kiss my ass select committee, you're an embarrassment to us all.

Originally Posted by Sasquatch

It's beyond obvious they don't care about dealing with criminals and the misuse of firearms the logical way mentioned above ^^^ This only effects the law-abiding, plain & simple.

As for this "registration is un-enforceable but we'll do it anyway scheme" what on earth will that lead to I wonder??

Kiss my ass select committee, you're an embarrassment to us all.

Easy, the sale of pvc pipe and end caps will jump, and thousands of firearms wont be registered.

I'm going to be visiting/emailing and calling my local MP for Hunua ad nuseum 'Tea Party' style to make my point.
Lots of shooting clubs in that electorate.

If he doesn't live up to expectations, I'll be campaigning for the party that does.

Problem is that all the parties will agree with the proposals because they will be seen by the general public as being tough on crime.

Originally Posted by stug

Problem is that all the parties will agree with the proposals because they will be seen by the general public as being tough on crime.

If only their was one that put New Zealand First? Imagine that.

This whole thing would have been brewing in the background for a while. They were just waiting for the right event to happen to push it.

Go Paula the hunter!!

Originally Posted by Maca49

Go Paula the hunter!!

Senidng to all of the comittee bar nz first, and also sending to paula bennett:

This is a response to the select committees final report on this subject, from a firearms license holder, a military officer and a voter.

I am frustrated and alarmed at the findings of this committee. The findings will have minimal impact on criminal possession of firearms, while introducing expensive time consuming, and practically unenforceable regulations on law abiding firearms license holders.

My first concern is that the recommendations in this report focus on increasing regulations and restrictions on license holders. These people have been vetted by the NZ police and deemed fit and proper. We abide by the law. How does increasing draconian restrictions on the already law abiding reduce illegal possession of firearms? The answer is of course, it doesn’t. Criminals will just flout more regulation and continue their behaviour. If changes are to be made, the end state must be an impact on illegal possession, not on the law abiding. There is no recommendation for increased customs screening of incoming shipments for example, to reduce firearms smuggled into New Zealand. Why not? Was this even considered? This would reduce the number of illegal firearms entering the country, without placing ineffective restrictions on the law abiding. Criminals don’t care about permits to procure, or endorsements, or security standards. None of these recommended changes is going to affect them.

Currently arms officers barely cope with the existing workload such as license renewal inspections and processing of permits to procure - the very document itself says that they are under resourced and now the committee is suggesting a Permit to Procure to be required for every firearm purchase and in the same breath saying that registration is unenforceable but yet that's exactly what they are trying to do. They aren't even capable of doing a good bullshitting job!

We recommend to the Government that the law be amended to make it clear that
the secure storage requirements must be met to the satisfaction of the Police, before a
licence or endorsement can be issued.

The report wants clarity on the storage requirements yet, strangely is not clear on what these requirements are? As for the "satisfaction of the Police"... That sets a dangerous precedent in my opinion. This ‘up to police interpretation’ policy has already been challenged by NZ license holders when Richard Lincoln took the NZ police to court and won his case. Several more instances of legal action are now pending as a result of police changing their ‘interpretation’ of the law. I'm referring to overall length measurement of MSSA as an example, originally it was measured extended - now it's apparently measured collapsed. If the storage requirements are left to police discretion my 6mm thick safe may suddenly become "unsatisfactory" tomorrow and police will require a 10mm safe to be installed. Which will be possibly regarded by many as an attempt to price shooters out of the hobby.

The recommendations do nothing to resolve the NZ polices embarrassing burglary of firearms resolution rate. (circa 9%). Surely even aiming to increase this, would have a greater result on reducing illegally held firearms, and not cause unwarranted restrictions on the law abiding? Was this raised during the select committee?

The proposals would Empower NZ police to decide what firearms they want restricted, with no justification (already happening and pending legal action as a result), to enter with no warrant, and inspect our bolt action firearms. Why is it deemed acceptable to effectively carry out warrantless searches on the deemed fit and proper, which by definition are held to a higher level of accountability that the general public, when this is not acceptable behaviour on criminals?

Police cannot cope with the current workload, eg license renewals, permits to procure and registration of ‘e’ and ‘b’ classification firearms in NZ, so how are they going to cope with the massive workload increase, and the associated costs?

Most embarrassingly, the report contradicts itself in regards to registration of firearms. Initially the report states

We recommend that instead of creating a firearms register, the legislation be amended to
require the Police to record the serial numbers of firearms owned by licence holders.

Clearly arguing against a register, which given the Canadian experience seems most sensible! The Canadians spent billions, far exceeding their budget on their registry, achieving a compliance rate far lower than what was required, and Canadian officials admitted that it had no net benefit! Worse, was the multiple security breaches of the database, resulting in a shopping list of firearms and their location for persons unknown. To date the Canadian registry has not been credited with solving ANY crime. It is no wonder that after several years, no benefit, and billions of dollars, that the Canadians repealed their registry. Simply, criminals will not register their illegal firearms before using them to commit crime. Maddingly the report later contradicts itself, stating

We recommend to the Government that the law be amended to require the Police
to record the serial numbers of all firearms possessed by licence holders upon renewal of
their licence or inspection of their premises.

This ‘database’ IS a registry. It is functionally identical, with the title being the only difference. So the committee doesn’t want a registry, but it does! It is later confirmed that although a registry is not recommended, it is exactly what is recommended, as per the following statement.

We recommend that a permit to procure be required for the sale or transfer of all firearms.
The permit process would give details of firearms transactions to the Police and it would
allow them to slowly build up a database of firearms possessed by individuals

The Canadians repealed their registry due to the time and expense involved, while providing no benefit to reducing illegally held firearms. Why is this being recommended? How is this meant to reduce firearms crime in New Zealand? I believe that the compliance rate will be very poor, due to what the firearms community has observed in Australia and the UK, where registration databases were then used to confiscate firearms at a later date after more law changes. I would sincerely appreciate any answers to the questions I have raised.

Frustratingly, most of the changes appear to have an end state of making life difficult for the law abiding with now impact on criminals. I see this as an attack on me, a law abiding firearms license holder. As a result I will not vote for any party involved in this committee. NZ first was the only party to raise similar concerns during the process, and I will be encouraging all of the 250,000 licensed firearms holders to vote for NZ first in order to preserve our shooting heritage.

I think we all need to take a bit of spare time & write to MP's outlining our concerns.

Time to get salty on them emails I think.

May actually put together a few bulletpoints and arrange a short get together with my local MP. Will put on my best smiley face

So what happens when a rifle that has its serial number stored in a "database" gets stolen? Will the database magically track it down or will the licenced, fit and propper registered owner be prosecuted for insufficient storage?
WANKERS!!

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