A Gun Register won’t stop gang shootings

Following the latest horrendous Texas school shooting our Prime Minister is receiving accolades while visiting the US for her decisive action to ban semi-automatics following our own March 2019 Christchurch massacre.

Meanwhile back here in New Zealand our Police Minister Hon Poto Williams believes the spate of 13 gang related shootings across Auckland in the past week would be prevented with a $ 208 Million of taxpayers money spent on a gun register.

The fact is says Chaz Forsyth President of the Sporting Shooters Association, “while law abiding licensed firearm owners handed in their semi-automatics, career criminals and gang members did not, so there is still a large pool of firearms including semi-automatics circulating on the black market. A register will not capture these illegal firearms because criminals by definition will not register them and even when seized by police are invariably untraceable because identifying numbers are ground off.” Added to this the pool of black market arms is being supplemented with guns smuggled in from abroad.

What this shows is that while the PMs decisive action may have reduced the number of semi-automatics in the country, the subsequent arms legislation changes have done nothing to impede the criminal use of firearms by gangs and neither will a register. Funding for the register should be reallocated to ridding New Zealand of its gangs.

This would have a two fold benefit, reducing gangland shootings and illicit drug supply, whereas a register will achieve nothing other than satisfying the governments curiosity as to roughly how many guns are in New Zealand, a no brainer really.

Meanwhile…
NZ Firearm register to be set up by Aussie Company

Sydney-based government software firm Objective Corporation has won a five-year contract to set up a New Zealand police arms information system, as part of the nation’s tighter gun controls. The company’s software will provide a secure digital database of all firearms transactions and legally owned firearms in NZ and is estimated to bring in $13 million for the ASX-listed company.

Seven Shooting Incidents across Auckland in the past 24 hours

Wednesday, May 25, 2022 @ 17:30 hr

President of the Sporting Shooters Association, Chaz Forsyth says “this level of gang violence in our biggest city is a clear indication, that all the Government firearm legislation since March 2019 has been a complete failure – to say nothing of a total waste of several hundred million of taxpayer money.”

As we have said all along, the Prime Minister targeted the wrong people in her gun confiscation and the new laws making it harder for responsible law-abiding Kiwis to own firearms”.

Rather then spending a further $208 Million on requiring the Commissioner of Police to micro manage shooting clubs and their ranges, as well as compiling lists of privately owned firearms, she would be better advised to spend this tax payers money on more proactive policing of the numerous gangs and their members who are currently poking a finger at her and the police.

“Far be it for us to tell the government how this should be done, but it is clear that the government has been poorly advised in their arms legislation. Legislation which has spectacularly failed to make New Zealand safer. In fact it is a far less safe country than it was 3 years ago” said Forsyth.

“We are One” – but really we are not

Monday, May 23, 2022 @ 21:30 hr

‘We Are One’ was the catch cry after the Christchurch Mosque shootings. Some consequences of that tragedy made a mockery of what unity we may have had, when the NZ Government and the NZ Police began targeting responsible, law abiding NZ firearms owners and stripping them of their rights when in fact, it was the NZ police who were wholly responsible for mistakes that led to the tragedy.

Caught up in the propaganda that followed, most Kiwis didn’t appreciate that once rights are removed from one sector of the population, they may be so easily stripped from another. So, we are not one, because we are not being treated the same. The government passed laws without consultation, with no research as to what the problems were, or who was actually responsible, while simultaneously covering up police failings. This is not justice and not acceptable.

Chaz Forsyth President of Sporting Shooters Association says “that’s not good enough in a democratic society. It feels more like a dictatorship with Government controlling the narrative (propaganda) and fast tracking laws made on the basis of ideology not reality.”

There is a huge cost to this, in eroding respect for the political system and the NZ police, by licensed firearms owners, whose co-operation is needed, their family and friends and also by the general public as well.

There’s also the massive cost in financing these new laws (upwards of $300 million) that will achieve nothing, but instead will make the situation worse and cost taxpayers large sums of money for no good outcome. That money is desperately needed for worthwhile things like hospitals, schools and transport.

In addition, there will be another huge cost in the downstream effect on our environment as people are forced away from hunting and as a result game animals such as deer and pests like possums and wallabies may well explode out of control and our native bush will be seriously affected. Is that what the Goverment really wants? It’s certainly not what the outdoor loving NZ public want.

Government propaganda may try to give the impression that we are one with their ideology and with it the notion that all will be well. However, there are an increasing number who think about these things and are concerned about deeper issues and the eroding of the rights that responsible people in this country have.

One such group are responsible firearm owners (240,000 plus) and their affected families and friends. Other people need to take note as they may be next.

We are one when we agree on solutions that work, not when dumb decisions are made by those in power.

Government Priorities Are Wrong

In announcing an additional $562 Million funding for police, outgoing Police Minister Poto Williams tries to give the impression that she is finally getting tough on criminals. However as Chaz Forsyth, President of the Sporting Shooters Association of New Zealand points out “that is all smoke and mirrors”

$94 Million of this extra funding is to be spent on tackling organised criminals and gangs. But at the same time another $208 Million is to be spent on a huge bureaucracy within police to regulate law abiding firearm owners, shooting club ranges and set up a registry of privately owned firearms. In other words the government considers by a ratio of 2:1, law abiding firearm owners in your neighbourhood a bigger threat to your safety than the gangs who perpetrate violence.

The truth is, says Forsyth, that shooting clubs and club ranges have an impeccable safety record and pose no threat to public safety, yet the regulations to control them will see many of them close, thereby removing safe places for gun owners to shoot. Registering Firearms to prevent their theft is a false premise, as shown by Canada who abandoned their register in 2012 after costing $ 2.1 billion for no measurable gain.

Forsyth says “we believe the long term goal of the government and police agenda is to significantly reduce the population of lawful firearm owners in New Zealand, ignoring their outstanding safety record and the adverse impact this will have on the management of game and pest animals and our future biodiversity.”

Why take our tools of the trade? A Wairarapa perspective.

“Minister Poto Williams is incompetent & out of touch”

“Owning firearms may not be a right, … but it’s not a privilege”.

We need Gang Control NOT Gun Control

Appearing on News Talk ZB in response to reports of two more gang related shooting incidents in Wairoa, and the failure of people to report them, Police Association President Chris Cahill claimed “It’s why we’ve been arguing for so long about the need to have much better gun control in New Zealand because this is the outcome of it, it becomes the norm.”

Chaz Forsyth President of the Sporting Shooters Associations says “gun control only affects law abiding licensed firearm owners, gangs ignore new firearms laws. That is why we need more effective gang control rather than more controls on law abiding citizens.”.

We understand that Act MP Nicole Mckee introduced a Criminal Proceeds Revovery Amendment Bill into parliament last evening, which would allow police to seize the assets of gang members when they are found in unlawful possession of a firearm. This would hit gangs where it hurts, in their wallets, however the government did not support such a practical measured and voted it down.

As Forsyth says “with gangs growing faster than our police force, we need the public to be the eyes and ears for the cops in order to keep us all safe, and at the same time for our government to pass practical laws that reduces crime rather than further political ideology as has been the case to date.

The Public need to know the truth. # 28

Propaganda is communication that is used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda. It is a political tool and we’ve seen it used powerfully during the recent years by our government. Truth is not necessarily its goal or purpose, highlighted by the claim of our PM that she was removing “assault rifles” from our streets following the Christchurch terrorist attack to make New Zealanders safe.

“The truth was that she removed hardly any “assault rifles”, which is a very specific type of military rifle, but instead removed nearly 60,000 sporting and historic firearms, which included only about 15,000 semi automatics in her rushed legislation to ban assault rifles” said Chaz Forsyth, President of Sporting Shooters Association of New Zealand.

In promoting the confiscation a senior police officer described these black semiautomatics as “evil guns” and by implication tarrng their owners as evil too. In fact these so called evil guns were safely locked up in the gun safes of law abiding owners and no threat to their fellow Kiwis. But it cost over a $100 Million of taxpayers money to compensate the lawful owners of all these guns.

Three years later is New Zealand a safer place? “The answer is a resounding No”, says Forsyth. Gang violence has escalated over the past 3 years with gangsters frequently reported to be using guns agains their rivals and even police. Already innocent Kiwis have been caught in the crossfire.

Now the government is pretending to get tough on these criminals by providing the police with $562 Million in extra funding, but $200 Million of that is to be spent on setting up a huge bureaucratic agency within police to regulate licensed firearm owners, their clubs, ranges and create a register of all private firearms. As one economist has pointed out, the extra police funding spread over 4 years will be consumed by inflation, just so that police can maintain business as usual.

AOS training at fault as victim granted compensation

$208 Million to satisfy government curiosity (?!)

On Sunday the government announced it will spend an extra $ 562 Million on the police.

“Much of the money is focused on firearms, with $208m being spent establishing a new Firearms Business Unit within police, that will oversee the new Firearms Register.”

The stated reason for the firearms register is because “we don’t know how many firearms there are in New Zealand”. And as Sporting Shooters Association Media Director Rob Cope -Williams says “We never will, because while law abiding citizens may register their firearms the criminals who use them to cause mayhem in our communities never will.”

So effectively the government is spending $208 Million on an attempt to satisfy their curiosity that is doomed to failure. As has been demonstrated in other jurisdictions gun registers have been proven to be ineffective in solving crime, so how will an expensive register make New Zealand safer, at a time when so many Kiwis await elective surgery and cancer treatment.

“It is well known in the firearm community that the existing register of handguns and restricted weapons is riddled with errors, and that only covers about 7,000 licence holders, so how accurate will the new register be when it has to cater for all the firearms of 242,000 licensed firearm owners.” Said Cope -Williams.

“The government is spending $ 208 Million on law abiding licensed firearm owners who are not a problem, while spending less than $100 Million ($ 94.5 Million) on organised criminals, who are the problem, where is the logic in that? Just imagine the difference that could be made to the safety of the public, and police, if all of that money (more than $300 Million) was spent on dealing with the gangs.”

NOW THE TRUTH WILL OUT

The sporting shooters Association of New Zealand welcomes the news that the Coronial Enquiry into the 2019 Christchurch terrorist attack will consider the matter of how the shooter was issued a firearm licence.

As Sporting Shooters media Director Rob Cope Williams stated “We know that immediately after the incident police claimed they were not at fault, in issuing Tarrant a firearm licence and a permit to purchase 1000s of round of ammunition on line, but we now know from the Royal Commission of Inquiry that the police failed to fulfil their duty in this respect. It is time all the evidence is made public”.

“While the Royal Commission had already looked at the process by which the terrorist obtained his firearms licence, the coroner said it was appropriate for the inquiry to examine the issue afresh.”

We will never know, for certain, what might have happened if [the terrorist’s] licence application had been declined. But, in order to decide whether there is a logical inference which I can draw on the balance of probabilities on this issue, I need to consider the available evidence.”

Cope Williams also went on to say “ We believe that the police tried to cover up their failings by making unsubstantiated claims to Cabinet that has lead to the draconian laws and regulation that are about to be introduce affecting shooting clubs and ranges that will see many of them closed.