Thread: License vetting and medical information

Anyone else here experienced the new vetting requirements for household members needing to provide medical certificates in support of someone else's licensing application?

Son and I are each prescribed medication - his is a long term thing, mine is short term. I'm an endorsed license holder and it is my partner who is applying for her license for the first time.

The vetting officer supplied forms to go to respective doctors to determine if my partner can get her license. This is under the premise that we are each "reasonably likely" (S24 of the Arms Act) to gain access to her firearms. So assuming for a second I am not a license holder myself, with ongoing access to my own firearms...

Anyone here a privacy / medical / legal whizz who can give some advice on the legality of this?

1. There is a fundamentally flawed assumption that a non-licensed person in the home is reasonably likely to gain access and this is the premise of the request for medical information to determine if others in the home are fit and proper. Vetted physical security (ie gun safe and ammo storage) should mean it is reasonably UNLIKELY that a non-license holder is going to gain access to firearms.
2. The legislation and the form are framed towards the license applicant but are now being used to compel medically confidential information from other members of the home. I don't believe this is provided for in law.
3. If this vetting process is all legit in order to test household members as being fit and proper given their likely access to firearms in that home, then it can be argued they are actually fit and proper to hold a license!

Arms Legislation Act 2020 No 23, Public Act 42 New sections 24A to 24D inserted – New Zealand Legislation

Let me hear your thoughts!

Apply together, everyone in your household over 16 so they can screen you all even as you provide references for each other...

As a GP I'm pessimistic about the usefulness of all this mental health screening, it risks driving mental illness underground. Screening for a history of violence is time better spent. But there is no escaping it, the AOs are getting sucked into the maelstrom of the GANFYD bureaucratic mentality. GANFYD is a town in Wales known to the English as GetANoteFromYourDoctor. It has given unto the world famous idiot sons like the Seatbelt Exemption Certificate, etc.

The only hope of escaping this nonsense is to realise that availability of ready means of suicide or violence does NOT drive up suicide or violence rates, but it will influence peoples' choice of method. Sensational yes, but suicide/violence itself is the problem, not the method.

As a detached mental exercise, think of a normal day in your life, and how many non-firearm chances you actually are presented with to readily and instantly kill or harm yourself or others. List EVERY chance or the bears will get you.

If you do this exercise honestly with just a smidge of imagination you will be forced into seeing that it is YOU stopping you, NOT any lack of means. Which does bring us back to mental health I suppose.

Originally Posted by Cordite

As a GP I'm pessimistic about the usefulness of all this mental health screening, it risks driving mental illness underground. Screening for a history of violence is time better spent.

The only hope of escaping this nonsense is to realise that availability of ready means of suicide or violence does NOT drive up suicide or violence rates, but it will influence peoples' choice of method. Sensational yes, but suicide/violence itself is the problem, not the method.

Yeah I think you hit a nail on the head there Cordite. Firstly, driving genuine health issues underground out of fear of a unjust consequence, and secondly the issue of not assessing the tendency towards violence but guarding against "a" method of applying that violence.

It really is a bureaucratic scramble for everyone in the chain of accountability to cover their ass.

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Originally Posted by mimms2

Nick Taylor is the oft-touted gun lawyer.

It may not be right. It might not even be legal. But are you going to pay some scumfuck lawyer to argue the point? With some other scumfuck lawyer?

Maybe run it past COLFO, get their legal-brains to give it the once over.

I'll be waiting till she gets her license first, followed by my own renewal in a few months. And during this process we will go round the buoy again, but so be it; this is the process Police wanted.

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Hang on, so household members have to get a form filled in by their doctor ?

Can you post a photo of the form ? Is it a simple question to the doctor like "do you have any concerns about this person" or is it asking the doctor to list medical conditions and/or medication ? The latter would be a massive invasion of privacy...

You kinda think they would do vetting and security checks for all people in a household at the same time, but it seems to fall in the "too hard" basket...

Here you go EBF, just covering some handwritten notes with the application file number and address of the Arms office.

This is the info being sought from others in the home.

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Fuck me dead! What next?

Another problem is i have less trust in and bugger all respect for my GP than the NZ Police, as he /they are only interested in my cash not my health. Now it seems i am going to have to grovel for His approval to continue my hobby legally.

Basically it appears there are going to be so many hoops to jump thru to get your licence that you will get trired and give up.

Some doctors might not want to fill that shit in. If some somebody goes off the rails for some or other reason and the doctor has “ given permission” so to say, how is that going to make them look?


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Originally Posted by Redaxler

Some doctors might not want to fill that shit in. If some somebody goes off the rails for some or other reason and the doctor has “ given permission” so to say, how is that going to make them look?

Exactly. What happens if the doc refuses...

Also, a doctor might be fundamentally opposed to firearms due to family tragedy etc.

This is a fucking can of worms.

When I spoke to my Doc when the new laws were being debated, he just laughed and said - well, I already have the ability to talk to the cops if I feel you are a danger, so nothing changes from his side. But this is clearly the cops covering their arses, and adding just another hurdle to firearms ownership.

heck my GP wants me to take him out for a bunny shoot!!!

Why would doctors want to sign this form , the cops are effectively putting the onus on doctors to judge if a person is fit & proper , I don’t even have a doctor any time I need to go it’s with who ever is available at the time so there’s no patient / doc relationship at all .

Originally Posted by Boaraxa

Why would doctors want to sign this form , the cops are effectively putting the onus on doctors to judge if a person is fit & proper , I don’t even have a doctor any time I need to go it’s with who ever is available at the time so there’s no patient / doc relationship at all .

Exactly

Great, another hurdle! I assume they're doing this for all medication e.g. gout and blood pressure? What side effects are they looking for - may send user into a murderous rage?

So the form is only for house hold members? so if you live alone then do they need that same form for doing the referee character checks?