New Gun laws have not made NZ safer but Commissioner Coster blames legal firearm owners

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We have every sympathy for front line officers caught up in the recent shooting incidents in Hamilton and Auckland over the past week, however we refute the Commissioners assertion that the source of guns in the hands of criminals is from burglaries of law abiding owners (5:20).

He refuses to acknowledge that if millions of dollars of illegal drugs can be smuggled into the country, guns can also come by the same means.

He also claims that some licence holders have sold guns to gangs, forgetting that police themselves have issued a dozen licences to known gang members.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018804202/police-commissioner-looking-into-frontline-officer-safety-as-risk-rises

Police Minister doesn’t know the law she voted for.

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A police officer is shot in Hamilton and in a media release commenting on that, the Police Minister has said “Cabinet was “working on the process” of getting a gun register in place to stop these weapons getting into the wrong hands”, Williams said. “We will make decisions on that as soon as we can.”

Incredible! Is it possible she doesn’t remember voting into law on June 18th last year legislation to establish a Register of Firearms?

AND just how is a register going to stop “weapons getting into the wrong hands” ? Could she tell us just how will the fact a firearm is registered stop it from being stolen?

AND what use will a register be anyway when Police’s own figures show that it is common for the serial numbers to be ground off stolen firearms.

AND does she not know that gangs import guns along with narcotics? Perhaps she thinks the gangs will register these illegal imports?

AND does she know that gangs and now making their own guns? Will they apply serial numbers and register those guns?

Really Minister!

Police Firearms Administration a Disgrace!

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Are our Police fit for purpose asks Neville Dodd president of Sporting Shooters. If the “purpose” is the administration of the firearms law, they themselves wrote then “the answer is clearly a resounding no!

Look at their current gross under-performance” he says.

Some obvious examples are:
• Grossly excessive delays in processing applications (see table below – a shocking indictment)
• Long delays in replying to emails and (in a lot of cases) not replying at all
• Dealers left in uncertainty over running their businesses because their annual licence
renewals are not being processed promptly.
• Rude and aggressive interviews of licence applicants and their families and referees
• Demands for details of home layout – to be stored on the porous police computer

Government must give urgency to the establishment of the previously announced independent Firearms Administration Authority Dodd says. “Confine police to what they are good at – policing the law. Not writing the law and not administering the law they have written.”

More red tape as museums forced to hold gun dealers licenses.

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Guns are inanimate but the Government seems determined to personify them as evil, as more & more pointless restrictions have been passed into law.

That is the view of Neville Dodd, president of Sporting Shooters, on the new law that requires museum curators to hold a firearms dealer’s license if there are any firearms in their museum’s collection. “This is just another ridiculous example of wrapping pointless red tape around the knee jerk reaction after the 2019 massacre.”

He says the museums in New Zealand have adequate security to ensure any firearms held by them are secure and this latest law is only going to discourage museums from fulfilling their function of displaying our some of our significant history.

Museums are already required to have a standard firearms licensee if they hold firearms in their collection. To now require that they hold an annual firearms dealers licence just adds pointless complexity and cost for no purpose as museums obviously are not in the business of buying, selling, hiring or manufacturing firearms and are therefore not dealers.

“Firearms are a significant part of New Zealand’s world history and inhibiting the preservation of that history with pointless and complex law changes will lead to a significant part of that history being lost to future generations.”

He says, in his view, legally licensed gun owners are already drowning in convoluted legislation and security rules that restrict transportation of guns and the use of them.

“I recognise Police have a problem with illegal guns in criminal hands and finding and seizing those guns, but dumping pointless restrictions onto the law-abiding people is not going to stop the public shootings.”

This is particularly the case as “We know that illicit firearms are flowing freely through our ports, and now the latest is that the criminal element are making their own guns by using 3D printers, so we say Government and Police should close those gaps and stop wasting time and taxpayers’ funds persecuting the law-abiding sportsmen and women.”

“Seriously, passing complicated (some would say unintelligible) laws that make people such as Museum Curators have to apply for a firearms dealer’s license is only going to lead to people getting more and more frustrated.

There are strong rumblings of discontent about the laws and red tape; surely the Government should listen?

Not to, will cost them at the next election.”