Thread: Colfo Announce Firearms Registry Review

And Right On Cue the Herald run a hit piece, no doubt at the behest of Police. It is behind a pay-wall so not many will read it hopefully.

Firearms and ammunition purchased by straw buyers supplied to Head Hunters, Black Power and Rebels gangs

I remember at the begining of this saga act bought up the fact that known gangmembers actually had firearms licences I wonder what became of that?

I think this quote from the article linked by the OP sums it up perfectly.

the costs versus the benefits of the Registry, and
what changes, if any, are required.

My thoughts are that it is here to stay in 1 form or another. I'm personally not registering yet, not for any fear or hatred of the register but I have no triggering events upcoming for a few years.

Can't read the Herald article but presume any Police comment highlights so called failings that will be corrected by the Firearms Register and prevent future recurrence. Police heirarchy are poor at pointing fingers at themselves. I can see no reason why under authority they currently have there has not already been more effective action against this particular issue. I also don't know why more pressure from politicians is not applied to Police to get on with it. Just maybe it's not serious enough to command higher priority currently. And maybe rather than look weak when the spotlight gets focussed on them Police heirachy would rather deflect with some anti gun opinion that they know will make headlines and that falsely places blame elsewhere. Pretty poor performance all round in my view.

The issue with this is it is a doctrinal problem - Police doctrine is response based i.e. a crime happens, Police respond, investigate and hopefully catch the crim which in theory results in a reduction in crime and an increase in safety. The issue here is when Police are tasked with an administrative function that is not directly related to core business - they follow human nature and tend to flog the resources for core business requirements which is not just a Police failing - as I said human nature.

The main issue with this, is Police by their doctrine treat all parties involved in the admin function as core business clients - which is to say no different than their run of the mill customer base i.e. crims. Dealing with these people vs normal law abiding citizens tends to require a mind shift and the average Police representative does this but you get the hard core that don't and treat everyone as undetected criminals which creates a them/us response.

Police heirachy seem to fall into this latter category and seem to want to nail everyone associated with the admin function of firearms be it dealers, licence holders, retailers, clubs, etc etc. It would appear that managing a softer approach for the people that require it and the harder approach for those that demand it would just seem to hard, too much energy required so buy more and bigger clubs and bash everyone with the proverbial thumping stick seems to be the result. Not ideal.

500 million (rough reported cost of the registry) is I think someone announced 2000 extra people on the beat, or if you wanted to go fully equipped and ready to play something like an extra 750 uniformed sworn staff? That would have a considerably bigger effect on crime, safety and recidivism than an admin system of limited benefit by anyone's reckoning as a means of actually solving crime. Like all 'tracking' systems - it tells you where the item WAS not where it IS, or may be at some time in the future and by the very nature of the claims made the registry can't do it. 500 million also funds a large chunk of the cancer drugs and mental health requirements - just plonking that out there, or a large chunk of the cancelled te tiriti based programs...

The reason quoted for getting rid of the old paper based system is that it was so out of date and it contained so many errors that it was basically useless. The E-cat and B-cat registries containing the data for a much smaller number of firearms similarly contained a fairly hefty error percentage, this was the reason behind wanting to make the new system electronic and public facing so the licence holders took on the job of ensuring their own records were correct. Unfortunately, the means of entering the data and the amount of work to get access means that of the 100,000 odd firearms registered there is likely the same numbers of errors already accumulating in the recently populated data. The main issue is without the licence holders doing the checking there is no way of knowing for the workers on the system to know whats good and whats an error. And the majority of people I've chatted to about it haven't bothered to go and check - they've registered when they needed to and done their bit no longer their problem and it's more effort than they cared about expending to go and do it. We just can't know if the data is good or toast. Makes the whole shooting box look like a waste of money, brains and time - the proverbial WOMBAT project.

Originally Posted by BSA

And Right On Cue the Herald run a hit piece, no doubt at the behest of Police. It is behind a pay-wall so not many will read it hopefully.

Firearms and ammunition purchased by straw buyers supplied to Head Hunters, Black Power and Rebels gangs

The whole straw buyers thing is what Police are pushing the most. Sure they have caught a lot of people but they have been stupid people, people going into a gunshop and dropping $10K and buying 3 or 4 of the same type of firearm plus a shit ton of ammo. The register will allow them to run cross references of firearms against names and licence numbers. So thats why we see so many straw buyer stories, so the public will think the register is making NZ safe, and NZ police are correct to want it to be kept.

And to make it worse the report under the OIA recently suggested it was only single digit percentages of firearms confiscated by police during crimes that were ever recorded from anywhere which means nearly all of them were probably imported which renders registration as a control tool for criminal activities useless.
It's just a tool for future bans and confiscations

if you are bringing in meth by the 100kg batch you arent going to be hindered with a 100 pistols at the same time

The other problem with dealing with crims with firearms vs responsible firearms owners is crims are quite prepared to use them against police your normal garden variety firearms owner wouldn't and will comply with police requirements. So on a risk based scale who is going to be the easiest to make an example of and if your example complies its a job well done, nothing to see here...

Originally Posted by Percy Jones

The whole straw buyers thing is what Police are pushing the most. Sure they have caught a lot of people but they have been stupid people, people going into a gunshop and dropping $10K and buying 3 or 4 of the same type of firearm plus a shit ton of ammo. The register will allow them to run cross references of firearms against names and licence numbers. So thats why we see so many straw buyer stories, so the public will think the register is making NZ safe, and NZ police are correct to want it to be kept.

Gunshops keep a record of sales and it's available to Police at any time. Tell me how that is different to a registry? And 10K and 3-4 firearms of the same type? More common than you would think with pest and bird control types purchasing 3 or more shotguns and a couple of slabs or so of ammo... Straw buying might be a relatively speaking uncommon problem in the scheme of the pool of firearms licence holders, but it has potential for a lot of harm so Police are right to want to close the loophole no argument with that - but I'd suggest an extra 750 boots on ground with their vehicles and gear would do more to close the loophole than a registry. If the registry is accurate, efficient, cheap and does what is promised I've got no argument. At this stage, I am not convinced from the reports so far that it is of a standard to meet those requirements. The bigger it gets, the harder it will be to fix the issues too.

Idiots will be idiots regardless of rules. We've had C cat holders selling firearm so how is a registry going to be any different.
Good people will behave bad people won't.

The gun shop records would be the most accurate records they have. Re another post of mine the police contacted me re an investigation they were doing and wanted to verify the records they had on me from 2017 until current. Everything they had from those records was accurate...

At least there is going to be a review so I for one are hoping that the information that will be presented will show that this registry will suck up a huge amount of money that won’t fix the problems that they are meant to.
As already stated the money would be better spent on more police on the streets.

Originally Posted by Mooseman

At least there is going to be a review so I for one are hoping that the information that will be presented will show that this registry will suck up a huge amount of money that won’t fix the problems that they are meant to.
As already stated the money would be better spent on more police on the streets.

no point with police on the beat as some wimpy judge just hands out p.d and low sentences.
i would hate to be a frontline cop, put my life in danger, spend ages doing paperwork. sit in court and have the judge hand out sentences that mean nothing

I agree with all the reasons given here why the register is a waste of time; too expensive, serial numbers can be removed, etc, etc, etc. But I have come round to holding the opposite opinion now; the public have been convinced this is a good idea, they're happy to pay for it with tax, so let's do it! Before anyone shouts me down please hear me out

A lot of people believe the register will make us safer. Ok, let's register our firearms. Then we're all safe, they say. But as legal shooters we WILL be better off. Any firearms crime from then on will be shown to be not committed by us. Once we're all registered and criminals are finding firearms, Cahill cannot blame us any more. Gun Control NZ cannot make a big deal about evil irresponsible firearms owners. Any legal firearm owner supplying guns to gangs will get hammered big time... good. I doubt there are many licenced shooters acting irresponsibly, but I'm happy for those bad few to get hammered. It's in our collective advantage to be proven to be the good guys.

At the end of the day it will be seen that firearms crime has not changed, unless the police are allowed to seriously go after criminals. Legal shooters will be shown to be blameless. I don't see a downside for us.

The idea that the register will be a shoping list for criminals is a legitimate concern. However, it also works in our favour. First up, if I was wanting to steal a firearm for crime I would target B, C and P licences, these firearms have been registered for decades anyway. I'm a farmer, any criminal wanting a firearm will know that most farms are a good source for firearms, I'm no worse off for being registered. Deliberate firearms theft from farms and other businesses likely to have them will not increase from firearms being registered. If the police database is broken into and firearms stolen to order by gangs it will be the biggest legitimisation of the shooters position imaginable, and a death blow for the positions of GCNZ etc and all the other gun-grabbers/registry fanatics. I doubt most people will be at significanlty higher risk of firearm theft after registering than they are now, and the politics of any of these thefts that might occurr are entirely in our favour.

The registry is highly favoured by too much of our population for it to work in our favour if it is abolished now. If it is abolished at this stage all future firearm crime will be publicly seen as our fault, and "it would not have happened if those selfish/evil shooters had been registered". Yes it is expensive and a pain in the butt, but ultimately it is very much in our favour for winning public support. There is not much to lose by registering, and much potential political advantage once it's clearly shown that the register is not stopping crime, and that we were innocent all along.