Police tighten their anti-gun ownership stance even further.

A 137-page discussion document has been launched by Police regarding the future Police approval and certification of shooting ranges.

Clubs and individuals have just 6 weeks to lodge their thoughts and feedback on the proposed changes. Chaz Forsyth, Sporting Shooters Assn President says he is sure he speaks for most of the 240,000 licensed gun owners when he says there was no intention of listening to those affected.

“These new regulations are another example of vindictive bureaucracy, dictated by government ideology against lawful firearm owners, following the Christchurch massacre, when we all know that that tragedy was perpetrated by a lone fanatic, who obtained his firearms through police mismanagement of the firearms licence system.”

He says the Police and the Government are targeting the wrong people.
“There has been no evidence of safety issues reported on civilian ranges in New Zealand. Now we have police, who are well known for their questionable shooting ability, through inadequate training, dictating to civilians on how to conduct their sports shooting.”
Forsyth adds that a major part of the role of clubs is training and safe use of firearms.

“To close down clubs and shooting ranges because they think that will help is like banning driver training to save lives on the roads”

The Sporting Shooters Assn is calling for a total re–write of the Arms Act 2020

10,000 less guns to save our native forests

Because of delays in renewals of gun licenses, there will be a shortfall of 10,000 hunters to control the feral deer in our native bush.

Chaz Forsyth, chairman of Sporting shooters, says gun owners are livid at the delays for which there seems to be no reason.
“It is almost a case of the Government and the Police not wanting any legal and licensed firearm owner to have guns or enjoy their sport.” Delays of up six months for those already licensed, and twelve months for those who want to become a legal owner are widely known.

“It is demoralizing that gang members can procure a license and supply other gang members, while lawful owners are facing a continuation of restrictions and new laws to stifle any desire to continue in their chosen sport”.

Rules regarding storage, transportation and use of the guns continue to choke law-abiding gun owners. No one seems to care, he says; guns are not PC in the eyes of many because of the publicity surrounding street shootings, and the authorities are feeding that message to the general public to shun licensed gun owners even more.

“People forget that there are about 250,000 lawful gun owners who shoot in controlled situations, hunt to feed their families and others, & are among the world’s best when it comes to Olympic games and international competition”.

He points out that shooting is the only international sport that the Government wants to stamp out rather than promote, and despite many attempts to get a response from the Minister, Poto Williams, the intense pressure to deny gun owners any freedom to enjoy their sport continues.

In the mean time our forests are being decimated and the Government turns its blind eye to the problem.

So if you agree, hunt for food or enjoy your sport, email poto.williams@parliament.govt.nz & exhort her to use her powers to grant extensions to expiring licences.

Withheld Firearm Data Shows Buyback Never Worked; COLFO press release

Wednesday, 9 March 2022, 6:07 pm

The “GunSafe” firearm data withheld from the New Zealand Herald for two years proves that the firearm confiscation following the Christchurch terror attack did not work, and the Government was wrong to act against licensed firearm owners.

COLFO Spokesperson Hugh Devereux-Mack says that if the GunSafe data is correct, illegal firearms were never handed in by criminals.

“This data, withheld for two years, shows the buyback did not make New Zealanders safer. Illegally owned firearms stayed illegally owned, in homes and on the street, ready to be used.

“Licensed firearm owners were vilified for complaining about the buyback and rule changes, and were maligned in an infamous cover of the Police Association magazine.

“Two years later the Police’s own data proves that we were right; a buyback would, as in every other country they have been tried, only recover the legal firearms, not the underground firearms that posed the real risk to everyone’s safety.”

GunSafe data was promised to be public and easily accessible to help guide policy. Police Association President Chris Cahill originally praised the Police for creating what he called a “dashboard of stats showing the “firearms event” landscape for the whole country.”

Devereux-Mack says GunSafe data has been selectively presented and misused since it was created in 2019. COLFO, the New Zealand Herald, and many others frustrated at the misuse have had to turn to the Official Information Act to extract data from Police.

“The Police have presented parts of the data when they think it shows the threat to themselves, or when implication that firearms are widespread will help policy changes.

“It is unreliable and should not be used as evidence supporting tighter restrictions on legal firearm owners nor supporting general arming of Police,” Devereux-Mack says.

The data includes all manner of events, even callouts where firearms are never found. Even the Police Association noted in 2020 that recording of events is erratic.

Data reliability is undermined by broad criteria that leads to ‘events’ being entered into the Gun Safe system. Entries include times a firearm is suspected but not present, times where there is a ‘perceived firearms risk’ but no actual firearm involved, times a subject is known to have a firearm – but Police do not encounter one, and for events when there is something that looks like a real firearm, but isn’t.

Event details are either combined in rough categories or inputted into free text fields which Police noted in an OIA response to COLFO last year, made it too time consuming to formulate into more useful data.

COLFO supports frontline officers and their work on operation Tauwhiro which is necessary to tackle criminal use of firearms. Devereux-Mack says this is where Police should be investing their efforts and not the administration of the firearms licensing system where police have clearly shown that they are an inefficient disaster.