Headlined as a “trade mission”, the Prime Minister’s tour of the USA seems to be more focused on what she has done with respect to gun laws and climate change than to trade.

The door opened for her as her arrival into the States coincided with a school massacre enabling her to wallow in her response to our own massacre.

The continuation of further restrictions must be looming large in her mind as accolades are poured onto her like confetti at a wedding ceremony.

While she packs the accolades into her suitcase, and providing the NZ air force plane is airworthy again, what will meet her here at home is totally contrary to what she has been revered for.

Gang wars are literally raging throughout our cities, children are stealing cars and doing ram raids to steal cigarettes, and gang recruitment is outstripping police recruitment numbers.

Chairman of Sporting Shooters, Chaz Forsyth, says his organisation speaks for the 240,000 legal gun owners, and he is furious that the government continues to blame the innocent to hide the lack of control of the criminals.
“They are talking about every gun owner having to register their serial numbers with the police, anyone with an ounce of intelligence will tell you the first thing criminals will do is remove the serial numbers”

He says reports that licensed gun owners are buying guns and supplying gangs doesn’t hold water either. “We know that there are some licensed owners who are openly members of gangs, so yes that is partially right; remove their licenses and sort out that problem rather than add more compliance for the innocent”.

Forsyth says in his view, and that of a vast majority of the people he represents, the police and government have done a very good job of turning the general public against people who use their guns lawfully.
“Interestingly, when a shooter does well at the Olympics, everyone thinks that’s great, but shooting game for meat is anti-social; sadly it seems we are shouting against thunder”.

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.

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.”

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.

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.”