Bid to ban semi-automatics
Thousands have signed petitions calling for a ban on semiautomatic weapons and largecapacity magazines in New Zealand.
Police figures show that nearly 7000 New Zealanders are endorsed to have military-style semi-automatic guns – similar to two of the guns carried by accused murderer Brenton Harrison Tarrant as he allegedly killed 50 people in two Christchurch mosques on Friday.
The Small Arms Survey said New Zealand had the 20th-highest gun ownership rate in the world.
Police figures, alongside to Stats NZ population figures, show the South Island is the most gunheavy part of the country.
Just one in 24 North Islanders hold a standard gun licence compared to one in every 13 South Islanders.
The police figures come from an Official Information Act request in May, 2017 and show nearly 250,000 New Zealanders have a gun licence.
A new petition started on Saturday by Wellingtonian Nik Green calls for a ban on semiautomatic weapons and large-capacity magazines. The petition had more than 14,800 signatures by 10am yesterday.
A separate petition, also calling for a ban on semi-automatic weapons had nearly 1500 signatures since beginning on Sunday.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Saturday promised that, following the terror attacks in Christchurch, gun laws in New Zealand would change.
‘‘We call upon the parliament to immediately take steps to legislate against the sale and possession of all semi-automatic weapons for private use,’’ Green’s
Nik Green, petition organiser
petition says.
‘‘Other weapons designed for harm such as high-capacity clips, military hardware ordnance, pump action pistols should also be banned.
‘‘These weapons of war have no place in the hands of private citizens. They are not toys. They are designed explicitly for taking human lives.’’
Green said he aimed to work together with the other petition organisers, of which he understood there may be more.
Council of Licensed Firearm Owners secretary Nicole McKee said the banning of a category of firearms would not necessarily stop similar shootings but, if a proper government inquiry found that was the case, her group would support a ban.
Legitimate reasons for the semi-automatic weapons included competitive target shooting, pest control for farmers, and government and private pest culls, she said.
‘‘They are not the problem – we are not the terrorists,’’ she said.
Each of those nearly 7000 with an E endorsement for semiautomatics had to prove to police they had a legitimate need for the weapons and faced extra checks and security protocols, she said.
Stuff previously reported that, of the estimated 1.5 million firearms owned in New Zealand, 15,000 were registered militarystyle semi-automatic rifles (MSSAs).
But these are only the registered semi-automatics, which fit the legal definition of an MSSA: a gun with a free-standing pistol grip, magazine of more than seven bullets, or muzzle flash suppressor.
To buy and use such a rifle requires an E-Category endorsement of a standard firearm licence, prerequisites being a reference from a shooting club or another bona-fide reason requiring one (often for pest-control or for gun collections).
Police figures show that more than 99 per cent of the 248,799 applications for gun licences in the decade to 2017 were approved.
‘‘These weapons of war have no place in the hands of private citizens. They are not toys. They are designed explicitly for taking human lives.’’