Thread: FAL renewal interview

Just completed the interview for my sons C cat.
An hours worth of questions, for me, as to his suitability.
The vetter ( ex cop ) was pretty good, actually
Thorough, but not over the top
Apparently theres now 500 staff, solely working on licences.
Their ‘section’ is going to be rebranded as a separate entity within the police.
The idea is there needs to be a degree of separation between police, as a whole, and firearms licencing.
A cynic might think the police are looking to restablish some credibility
He reckons renewals should be 3-4 months, going forward.

Originally Posted by Frogfeatures

Just completed the interview for my sons C cat.
An hours worth of questions, for me, as to his suitability.
The vetter ( ex cop ) was pretty good, actually
Thorough, but not over the top
Apparently theres now 500 staff, solely working on licences.
Their ‘section’ is going to be rebranded as a separate entity within the police.
The idea is there needs to be a degree of separation between police, as a whole, and firearms licencing.
A cynic might think the police are looking to restablish some credibility
He reckons renewals should be 3-4 months, going forward.

I'll believe it when I see it
Still waiting here and now that I have the mobile number of the police licensing boss in wgtn I'm going to start calling him every day from next week

I've tried being nice and it doesn't work

He ( vetter ) told me an interesting yarn, over a cup of tea.
A friend of his, FAL holder, spends 5-6 months a year in the States, and the rest of the year here in NZ
Came into MIQ wearing a MAGA hat ( Trump ) and apparently gave the MIQ guards some stick while isolating there.
Police state and all that.
He got a letter from the police, when home, basically saying improve your attitude, or it’ll effect your FAL come renewal.
Pissed him off, so he took it to court.
Letter got thrown out, and apparently this no longer happens.
Because the ‘decision’ about his attitude was obviously subjective.
‘Someone’ made the call, it was over the line.
Anyway, he had the letter framed, and it’s on his wall.
I seem to remember reading somewhere about a similar letter being sent with regard to speeding tickets ? @308 can I suggest polite but insistent ?

Thanks to all of you for sharing this information, guys. I'm going to stick these posts on my gunroom wall, and make sure she who must be obeyed is aware of them too. Cheers!

Originally Posted by Frogfeatures

He ( vetter ) told me an interesting yarn, over a cup of tea.
A friend of his, FAL holder, spends 5-6 months a year in the States, and the rest of the year here in NZ
Came into MIQ wearing a MAGA hat ( Trump ) and apparently gave the MIQ guards some stick while isolating there.
Police state and all that.
He got a letter from the police, when home, basically saying improve your attitude, or it’ll effect your FAL come renewal.
Pissed him off, so he took it to court.
Letter got thrown out, and apparently this no longer happens.
Because the ‘decision’ about his attitude was obviously subjective.
‘Someone’ made the call, it was over the line.
Anyway, he had the letter framed, and it’s on his wall.
I seem to remember reading somewhere about a similar letter being sent with regard to speeding tickets ? @308 can I suggest polite but insistent ?

Mate I've given up on polite completely

IPCA complaint
Letter to Ombudsman (fyi - not their department)
2 letters to the minister
Letter to Nicole

They told me it's all approved and with the printers and will be with me any day now blah blah

Police could tell me the sky is blue and I'd look outside to check

Stone cold useless, the lot of em - they took a whole year to do my C endorsement a couple years back so they have got "form" - this time it is just a simple license renewal and I've been waiting since fucking May or something

I shall never give in I shall never back down and I shall hound them to the ends of the earth until they do their fucking job

I have had mine renewed twice the first guy was hour and a half ..when the next time came around I said to the guy see if you can beat the last guy he said ill be 30mins max...2 hours later sitting in the sun drinking tea and eating biscuits .we talked about firearms in general and attitudes etc.but spent most time talking life.. boxing .sport. politics everything you can think of.i said to him when he left.i can see why you sit there and talk.its to gauge character etc.he said yip if your fidgety short on answers and timid .sometimes can be nervous but in reality usually there is something to look into.

I recently did a renewal interview for a friend .and the lady commented how calm I was and also the general chatter .

I said I have nothing to hide and in these days it's hard enough to obtain a firearms license yet alone maintain and keep it.

Apparently she commented that the applicant was to get free trigger locks .yet they don't have then yet to hand out .may have changed .

Don't be nervous just be honest. Everyone makes mistakes in life and they surely take that into consideration .

Finally got my license renewed

The new license has a lookthrough holo type pic of my ugly face and they have ditched all that license class guff on the back in favour of some tiny writing listing endorsements


Watermarked all over with NZP markings and for some weird reason it has my DOB stamped loud and proud on the bottom LH corner - odd


Anyway, people - get your applications in early cos despite 2 complaints to the IPCA and 2 letters to the minister Ol Plod do not give a fuck about you - I recommend a 1 year lead time and yes I know it shouldn't be this way and yes I know we should have a functioning government but as a guinea pig who has dared to push the envelope by applying for a license renewal 3 months before the old one expired I can say - do it one year ahead

Good luck, people

@308 - #winning! Don't forget to write a thank you to Nicole!

Originally Posted by Bol Tackshin

@308 - #winning! Don't forget to write a thank you to Nicole!

I know Nicole and like her and her husband but in this case she didn't do jack

What worked for me was finding people's ph numbers and ringing them up

I don't like the fact that modern life is stacked full of people who don't work but that is the world these days - incompetence is endemic

Interestingly there are too few unemployed chasing a lot of job openings so inflation may be with us for a while yet


What I'm really curious about is how many people who owned places in Ak and maybe Wn looked at the prices a few years back and said, Fuck it, let's retire and bought a cheaper place in Wangavegas or Gisborne or wherever, one of them stayed working from home but effectively at least one is now out of the workforce so the property prices pushed more workers out of the market effectively

Where the hell is Shamubeel Yaquob when you need him? This sort of demographic question would be right up his alley

Originally Posted by OGM

All this 'attitude' and you still want an endorsement which comes with a bunch of conditions...?

Pre-covid I apply for an endorsement and it takes the NZ Police a full calendar year to pull their finger out and bother getting their job done - a whole year to add an endorsement

Rolling over a license I apply 3 months before renewal and the NZ Police fail to perform their job of renewing a license provided i meet the conditions of being a fit and proper person

I'm not saying I have any kind of "right"to a license and I know that I have to pass scrutiny to hold licensed classes for the firearms I possess

What I believe you may be missing in the argument I am putting forward is that this is a contract or agreement between two parties - on the one hand I as an individual am asked to provide certain guarantees that I am not the sort of person who will go nuts and shoot people and I am perfectly happy to assure the licensing authorities that this is the case
The other part of this contract is the state, represented in this case by the police, who are the statutory licensing authority

This is their job

If I don't like it I can't go anywhere else

So when they give me the run-around (oh, we're terribly busy and you should apply a year early) and wet excuses (oh we didn't know you had a postal address and were trying to reach you by email) as to why they cannot do their job, I get a bit peeved

Possibly even miffed

Actually, OGM, when I deal with a government department that sets rules for thee but not for me I start to think that perhaps they don't know what they are doing

So when it comes to "attitude" I would put it to you that I am being charitable to the NZ Police, calling them incompetent at managing their statutory job is better than the other alternative that fits their delays and obfuscations in regard to FAL management in the past few years which is the possibility that they have an agenda against licensed owners and I am not so nasty as to believe that

In fact I believe that I am being mild by calling them incompetent because I can plainly and honestly state that if i did my job as poorly as they currently are doing theirs, I would expect to be fired for incompetence

And yet the police cannot be fired, can they? Handing out a license to Tarrant then saying that the license issuing office was under pressure and hence didn't check that his referees were his gaming buddies who hadn't met him offline more than a couple of times and yet no-one from that office got fired, did they? The poor diiddums were "under pressure"

I don't know anything about you OGM but have you ever found yourself in the middle of an event that was written up in the news and looked at the report later and thought that the reporter got it wrong or shaded it in the wrong light?
Have you ever dealt with a govt dept that gave you the run around?
Dealt with the building consent dept of your local council?

Do you think that the state is infallible?

I am not the enemy of the state because we the people are the state

If I ask the right questions and put pressure on slackarses who aren't doing their job then I can help us all build a better more honest government where people take their obligations seriously

And no I don't just criticise, actually I build things, real things that help people
Last year i built a Fire Station and this year I built a childcare facility. My job is to create order and fight entropy


Enough about what I believe, OGM - what do you believe? What do you do? How do you make this world a better place?

So she couldn't give me an answer, passed all her requirements but she couldn't give me a time as to when license would be sent out.
How long have people been waiting for their new license to arrive in the mail?

I find the “rights vs privilege” argument interesting. On one hand it is a right, as you pay your money, do the test and if you pass you must be issued with a licence. This is the case with many other licences. Some you don’t even have to pass a test and the process is open to generally every member of the public. A test is merely to ascertain a baseline of competency.
On the other hand, there is a certain amount of subjective discretion on whether they decide you are suitable enough to hold a licence or not, therefore you should feel privileged they are magnanimous enough to wave their arms in the air and declare you of suitable character to hold said licence. There does have to be very clear justification for rejecting the application as this can be challenged, therefore further weakening the privilege argument.

Originally Posted by 308

Pre-covid I apply for an endorsement and it takes the NZ Police a full calendar year to pull their finger out and bother getting their job done - a whole year to add an endorsement

Rolling over a license I apply 3 months before renewal and the NZ Police fail to perform their job of renewing a license provided i meet the conditions of being a fit and proper person

I'm not saying I have any kind of "right"to a license and I know that I have to pass scrutiny to hold licensed classes for the firearms I possess

What I believe you may be missing in the argument I am putting forward is that this is a contract or agreement between two parties - on the one hand I as an individual am asked to provide certain guarantees that I am not the sort of person who will go nuts and shoot people and I am perfectly happy to assure the licensing authorities that this is the case
The other part of this contract is the state, represented in this case by the police, who are the statutory licensing authority

This is their job

If I don't like it I can't go anywhere else

So when they give me the run-around (oh, we're terribly busy and you should apply a year early) and wet excuses (oh we didn't know you had a postal address and were trying to reach you by email) as to why they cannot do their job, I get a bit peeved

Possibly even miffed

Actually, OGM, when I deal with a government department that sets rules for thee but not for me I start to think that perhaps they don't know what they are doing

So when it comes to "attitude" I would put it to you that I am being charitable to the NZ Police, calling them incompetent at managing their statutory job is better than the other alternative that fits their delays and obfuscations in regard to FAL management in the past few years which is the possibility that they have an agenda against licensed owners and I am not so nasty as to believe that

In fact I believe that I am being mild by calling them incompetent because I can plainly and honestly state that if i did my job as poorly as they currently are doing theirs, I would expect to be fired for incompetence

And yet the police cannot be fired, can they? Handing out a license to Tarrant then saying that the license issuing office was under pressure and hence didn't check that his referees were his gaming buddies who hadn't met him offline more than a couple of times and yet no-one from that office got fired, did they? The poor diiddums were "under pressure"

I don't know anything about you OGM but have you ever found yourself in the middle of an event that was written up in the news and looked at the report later and thought that the reporter got it wrong or shaded it in the wrong light?
Have you ever dealt with a govt dept that gave you the run around?
Dealt with the building consent dept of your local council?

Do you think that the state is infallible?

I am not the enemy of the state because we the people are the state

If I ask the right questions and put pressure on slackarses who aren't doing their job then I can help us all build a better more honest government where people take their obligations seriously

And no I don't just criticise, actually I build things, real things that help people
Last year i built a Fire Station and this year I built a childcare facility. My job is to create order and fight entropy


Enough about what I believe, OGM - what do you believe? What do you do? How do you make this world a better place?

Lol nicely put @308

Originally Posted by ocean-hunter

So she couldn't give me an answer, passed all her requirements but she couldn't give me a time as to when license would be sent out.
How long have people been waiting for their new license to arrive in the mail?

For what it is worth I got the phone number of the issuing officer and it took about 6 weeks

Approval sent to a sworn officer to sign then off to the printers then couriered to your address

I don't see anything wrong with ringing them up and asking where you are at in the queue and would encourage you to do so

Good luck

Originally Posted by OGM

Rules are set by the politicians who you and your fellow citizens voted for. If you disagree vote for someone else.

What no bites , fishing must be lousy this weekend . Why not got hunting instead , I am . I'm off .