Gun holdouts warned as buy-back ends

MORE than 56,000 prohibited firearms were handed in during the firearms buy-back scheme and about $102 million paid out in compensation.

The scheme, which ended on Friday, was the result of legislation that followed the March 15 Christchurch mosque shootings.

Speaking at the Papakura police station yesterday, deputy commissioner Mike Clement said there had been more than 4154 hand-ins in the past week as the deadline approached.

‘‘Police welcome any opportunity to reduce harm in our communities and ultimately the more than 30,000 hand-ins indicate that firearms owners understood the why – that we hope to never again see the kind of attack we saw in

Christchurch,’’ Clement said.

Police had just three months to get the firearms buy-back process in place and start communicating with owners. He believed police had achieved their goal.

Police Minister Stuart Nash said police would follow up with firearms licence holders who were known to still hold prohibited guns.

‘‘My strong advice to these people is to voluntarily surrender them or face risk of prosecution, loss of licence and firearms, and five years in jail.

‘‘You’d have had to have lived under a rock to be a firearms owner and not know what has been going on.’’

Anyone who was hiding their guns was ‘‘a criminal’’.

‘‘These are the guns that are primarily for killing people,’’ he said, rather than for animal hunting.

Both Nash and Clement agreed New Zealand was a safer country than it was six months ago.

Most of the surrendered guns were already partially destroyed, but a hydraulic crusher would now render them into a state where they are inoperable.

Anyone concerned about a neighbour or someone else having a banned firearm should phone police on 105 or make an anonymous call to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.