Over 4000 guns stolen in five years

More than 4200 firearms have been stolen across the country in the last five years.

Police figures released under the Official Information Act show nearly half of the 1773 incidents of firearms theft were confined to four of the country’s 12 policing districts.

There were 241 incidences in

Canterbury, 228 in Bay of Plenty, 207 in Waikato and 199 in Central (North Island) between the start of 2015 and November 2019. Overall, 4240 firearms were stolen.

Those districts are among the five areas with the most Type A, or standard, firearms licences in the country.

High numbers of licence holders in an area did not necessarily correlate to high numbers of thefts. The Southern district, which includes Otago and Southland, had 32,602 licence holders as at September 30, 2019 – second behind Canterbury with 36,174 – but recorded 149 thefts.

Auckland City, which has the lowest number of licence holders also had the lowest number of thefts with 58, while nearby Northland, Waitemata¯ and Counties Manukau recorded 135, 108 and 115, respectively.

Firearms thefts in Eastern, Wellington and Tasman districts stood at 142, 100 and 91.

While the top four districts for thefts each have significant rural populations, Federated Farmers spokesman Miles Anderson said the police statistics revealed where thefts took place but they did not indicate where the victim or culprit was from.

Many urban people travelled to rural areas to hunt and shoot, he added.

As owners of valuable livestock and land on which wild animals were located, farmers were common victims of firearms crimes, Anderson said.

Firearms were an essential work tool for farmers – used in pest control and humane animal destruction – and for hunting and recreational shooting.

While the majority of thefts were from licence holders and businesses, police have also fallen victim to robbers. Between 2015 and 2019, there were six occasions where nine real and dummy firearms were stolen from or misplaced by police, of which only two were recovered.

Police were invited to comment but did not respond.