Thread: 24 June 2023

Originally Posted by hakka_ranger

Just hope we won't see the "firearm registry leaked!" headline news someday. This privacy leak would potentially give the law biding owners' location to the crims.

Whoever came up with this registry idea should bear that responsibility if it happened.

The main issue with this risk is once the leak has occurred and the addresses are out in the wild, it doesn't matter if the affected owner moves as the next occupants of the house are at risk and completely unaware of why. The address is potentially permanently marked as a 'firearms source' once a breach occurs. I think this has been found overseas with various types of registries - a registry is a 'snapshot in time' list and yesterday is not a predictor of tomorrow and once a breach happens the outdated list remains outdated but 'out in the wild'.

Also, it won't help prevent crime, it won't solve crime - it's literally only a control tool. Arguably the level of offending vs level of lawful safe ownership as a purely cost/benefit based analysis would show that the cost and risk don't provide a level of benefit that is being claimed - but in all honesty the level of administration provided over the last decade obviously does leave a lot to be desired. The records of importation permits being claimed to have been lost, the leak of hard data from Auckland, the loss of data after the 'buy back' plus many other issues that have arisen with licences misprinted or sent to the wrong address, permit errors, lost applications etc etc show that it doesn't really matter what is implemented in terms of registration as it won't be accurate or reliable enough unless it is funded and resourced correctly with appropriately trained staff with the right background and experience to identify and correct errors as they are found. Hiring staff with no firearms knowledge will not allow this to happen at all...