Thread: 250,000 licence holderds

Hi all,
I have recently joined this forum with the recently signaled political agendas as the motivator.
Firearms (read "weapons" in the media) owners are obviously under attack and as a group we appear to be largely powerless against the advancing threat to our chosen recreation.
The 250,000 (a figure regularly repeated) licence holders do not have a great deal of political leverage.
However we all have partners and/or other family members and if they acquired firearms licences that could boost the total licence holders to say 500,000.
That becomes a compelling number and subject to voter turn out at the next election would be more than enough to gain representative seats in Parliament should a NZ Shooter Party be formed or certainly get the attention of the main parties.
To that end my wife has started the process of obtaining her firearms licence. On its own it is not a remarkable initiative but if enough were motivated to make the commitment ....? There are also a number of other benefits having additional firearm licence holders at an address.
Alternatively do nothing and watch the erosion of our shooting privileges.
Its also past time for licence holders and the associated shooting organisations to be represented via a single overarching entity.
To date I may have missed it but I have not seen any push back from the existing organisations, divided we fall.

As I am new I have not read many forum submissions so if there is a post with a similar message I apologise in advance
Regards
Accuracy

most of the posts have the same ideas but as there are groups within groups we are divided within our own community some think softly softly is the way some think standing up for yourself is the way others just want to do nothing and expect every one else to do it for them so far i have written twice to national got no reply sighned petition and sent a submission im also going to support with money but still figuring out the best place to send it

Sadly - we didn't all hang together because there were too many out there who at the time of writing are allowed to keep 'their' guns, thus not being directly affected, are staying schtumm; so now we shall assuredly all be hung separately. Even now, as you will read oh Accurate one, there are forum posters wanting everyone to play nice with the Thief-In-Chief and her Wormtongue'd acolytes...

My money literally and figuratively is with COLFO and in the last couple of days, the initiative taken by the Kiwi Party. So far they're the best chance we have not to become the Alderaan of gun-owners. IMO. YMMV.

Yeppers. Join COLFO. I only put my money where it pays - not on horses or cards.

Welcome, but there are already too many parties chasing votes. ACT, New Conservative, Kiwi Party, Outdoors Party.
Spread like marmite it won't change a thing.

Originally Posted by dogmatix

Welcome, but there are already too many parties chasing votes. ACT, New Conservative, Kiwi Party, Outdoors Party.
Spread like marmite it won't change a thing.

Act was the only one who stood up and said something when EVERYONE else was signing us away.....

Hi Dogmatix,
Organisations such as COLFLO do not have leverage unllke seats in Parliament.
You are correct regarding fragmentation we need one entity which is why some you mention must amalgamate for the greater benefit and the rest disregard.
I would be in favour of this amalgamated party having a title without reference to firearms in the name but have core principles to protect licenced firearm owners interests in the manifesto.
Those that think the new legislation does not affect them need to wake up, if not now then what is coming sure as hell will.
Regards
Accuracy

Originally Posted by dogmatix

Welcome, but there are already too many parties chasing votes. ACT, New Conservative, Kiwi Party, Outdoors Party.
Spread like marmite it won't change a thing.

Yup, the way I see it ACT supported us from the start. So it really comes down to either KIWI or ACT, ACT has been good to us but KIWI is a party of shooters from what I read????
Anyone got any more info on this?
I'd like to see a thread debating the pros and cons between these two parties.

Voting wise from my personal view, we have nothing to loose. And the countries finances can go to hell if it means a good outcome for the shooting sports.

I was a staunch National voter, now never again. RED or BLUE is just a purple mess.

It's not just the firearms issue that scares me - it's the way that communist mutt pushed new law through illegally. She did it with guns, what's next? And the other parties let her! WTF is that about? The precedent is established. Any of them could do it if elected. All they need to do is drag their snouts out of the trough for five minutes and Yahoo, new law. Yes ACT tried to point out what was going on, but is Seymour to be trusted any more than the others?

ACT is a political party like all the rest.... to be trusted only so far.
But they are all as bad as each other.
What do we as shooters have to loose? NOTHING.
I have thought some more about this and had a few discussions etc. I think ACT is the safe bet as they already have some votes from joe public, our collective votes should help a lot.
While KIWI is probably a better party (if it is staffed with shooters etc) they will receive ONLY the shooting votes, which might not be enough to get them over the line....

Thoughts guys and the odd girl or two out there?

I really do like the idea of a party staffed with shooters....

Originally Posted by 40mm

ACT is a political party like all the rest.... to be trusted only so far.
But they are all as bad as each other.
What do we as shooters have to loose? NOTHING.
I have thought some more about this and had a few discussions etc. I think ACT is the safe bet as they already have some votes from joe public, our collective votes should help a lot.
While KIWI is probably a better party (if it is staffed with shooters etc) they will receive ONLY the shooting votes, which might not be enough to get them over the line....

Thoughts guys and the odd girl or two out there?

I really do like the idea of a party staffed with shooters....

New parties always struggle and historically only ones founded by an mp succeed.

Even Colin Craig with his millions couldn't get past the 5 percent. He got 4.7 which is rough.

Act will at least have a decent amount of seats if we vote for them. Whether or not Seymour puts out for us is another thing.

I think a better question is what we want to achieve through political parties.


I think the best we could hope for is a scientific study from the likes of Gary Mauser and Samara McPhedran about the effect it the ban has on gun crime. And then some sort of relaxation of the laws.

Originally Posted by Russian 22.

I think the best we could hope for is a scientific study from the likes of Gary Mauser and Samara McPhedran about the effect it the ban has on gun crime. And then some sort of relaxation of the laws.

Has the discussion with the wife going past petrol station. Wow, 10 cents off! Yes, little morsels of concessions to make us feel a bit better, but it just deflects what should be our anger at paying well over $2 per litre of the cheapest fuel type. So a little relief here or there, but the overall crush on our rights is relentless.
The Kiwi party's lawsuit (supported by COLFO) against the latest Arms Act aims for a bigger push-back, drawing a line in the sand versus against the gungrabbers.

Originally Posted by Cordite

Has the discussion with the wife going past petrol station. Wow, 10 cents off! Yes, little morsels of concessions to make us feel a bit better, but it just deflects what should be our anger at paying well over $2 per litre of the cheapest fuel type. So a little relief here or there, but the overall crush on our rights is relentless.
The Kiwi party's lawsuit (supported by COLFO) against the latest Arms Act aims for a bigger push-back, drawing a line in the sand versus against the gungrabbers.

I get that. I am just saying what I think is the most likely best case scenario.

Or it can go full Australia with there military style lever actions.

Originally Posted by Accuracy

Hi Dogmatix,
Organisations such as COLFLO do not have leverage unllke seats in Parliament.
You are correct regarding fragmentation we need one entity which is why some you mention must amalgamate for the greater benefit and the rest disregard.
I would be in favour of this amalgamated party having a title without reference to firearms in the name but have core principles to protect licenced firearm owners interests in the manifesto.
Those that think the new legislation does not affect them need to wake up, if not now then what is coming sure as hell will.
Regards
Accuracy

sorry about this but heres a snippet that seems to sum up our plight....
https://youtu.be/kHHitXxH-us
just insert relevent groups where appropriate

In the 2017 NZ general election 2,605,854 votes were cast from an eligible 3,298,009 voters.
The 5% threshold to gain Parliamentary representation would be 130,293 votes, how many licence holders are there again?
As previously mentioned muster all the shooting interest groups under one party and potentially this party would hold the balance of power after the next general election.
Act possibly is the over arching party if David Seymour and company have an interest and that is a simple conversation to have otherwise form a new party.
How hard is this really, divided we fall.
Accuracy