Reducing drivers licence fees, yet proposing to increase firearm licence fees?

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It is impossible not to see a pattern of sorts emerging from the news reports of proposals to
reduce fees for driving motor vehicles (which contribute directly more than 9,000 injuries and
deaths annually), and to increase fees for firearm licence holding (from which casualty numbers
are less than 500 annually, mostly from intentional self-harming).

This pattern is however riddled with anomalies: with more than 4 million holding licences to
operate any form of motor vehicle on a public road, there are only about 240,000 people licensed
for firearm possession and use. The former are a majority, the latter a minority.

Never mind the vastly higher number of casualties from motor vehicle misuse, if we relate these to the number of licensed users, we obtain a rate per 10,000 residents for motor vehicle misuse (causing a casualty or two) of more than 20 per 10,000, which when compared to the equivalent rate by firearm
licence holder, is almost identical, also at 20 per 10,000 residents.

Yet three-quarters of the firearm casualties are intentional, often by unwell people intent on self-destruction.
The questions must be asked, does putting fees up encourage licence holding?

And, if we knew the number of unlicensed firearm owners, what is their casualty rate?

Do you really feel safer?

N.Z. First agrees they were mistaken to support gun law reforms

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Sporting Shooters President Alec Melville recently met New Zealand First candidate Shane Jones about NZ First support of the misguided Labour Government’s firearm law reforms.

 Blunt-speaking Shane Jones not only agreed that NZ First were mistaken in supporting the law reforms but also indicated that he does not support further reforms including full firearm registration (FFR).

Mr Jones said that New Zealand First would rather Police concentrate on the gangs than making license holders lives a misery through excessive regulation.

This is contrasts with the reaction of outgoing Dunedin North MP Dr David Clark at a meeting in March with Chaz Forsyth, who when shown an example of the intensive and onerous details to be provided for gaining Commissioner of Police approval of all small arms ranges, responded to the effect that the keeping of records in a centralised system would reduce the dependence upon clubs, whose recruitment of committee members had long posed difficulties.

The burdensome firearm law reforms imposed by a central government intent on trying anything to curb violent crime had rebounded to the detriment of the licensed firearm owners, without impacting upon those whose ill-intent had already been publicly declared.

“Do you feel safer?” is a question which must be asked in light of these ‘reforms’.