Bungled buyback a Govt shot in the foot
Can we confidently say military-style guns won’t be available?
The gun buyback — remember that? Post March 15, part of the Government’s response to the mosque attacks was to get rid of the sort of weapons the alleged attacker used that fateful day.
The Government got lucky, to the extent that the person charged had a licence, in other words he was able
to access legally the sort of weapons we now want to get rid of.
I don’t know what they would have done had there been no licence, because part of the ongoing debate around guns in this country is the fact the bad guys have them and we have never really had any real idea of how much trouble they potentially are.
The Government’s response was in fact three-fold. One, the gun buyback and associated rejig of gun laws; two, the role of social media that saw the Prime Minister rush to Paris to sit and talk and achieve next to nothing; and three, the security review, the results of which we are yet to hear details of.
I said at the time that one was pointless, two was politically acceptable, but mostly wasteful, and three was where the real gold, if there was any, would be found.
I still believe I am right.
The alleged gunman was a 28-year-old white single male with no job and no obvious income source. He was travelling or had travelled to the likes of North Korea, Pakistan, Turkey and Montenegro. The fact that raised no flags is why I think the security review will be the most valuable part of the response.
But back to the buyback. While it is true that once all the meetings are held and those who wish to sell their weaponry will have transacted their deals willingly or relatively so, the great test of this part of the reaction is the answer to this simple question: As a result of the buyback, can we confidently say the weapons that caused all that havoc in Christchurch are no longer available, no longer accessible, have we collected them all up and destroyed them?
We can, of course, say no such thing.
Nor, if the latest numbers are anything to go by, will we be even close to being able to say that.
As of the weekend, 85 events have been held, 11,511 guns have been handed back, that’s an average of 135 an event. If you extrapolate out the remaining events then it’s 250 events times 135 per meeting — you end up with a bit over 30,000 guns.
Although we don’t know how many guns are in the country, it is suggested by those who have some clue the number is around 1.5 million.
Even if you give or take 100,000 or so, 30,000 by way of a buyback is but a tiny fraction of what most of us would consider to be a reasonable percentage of the sort of weapons that they’re actually after.
In other words did they get them all? Not even close.
And the numbers are tailing off. In the early meetings, the number sold per meeting would have extrapolated out to about 60,000 weapons. Even at that level, I was highly sceptical.
But those were the keen and willing, those were the ones who wanted to get in early. Having flushed that lot out, you are left with the moderately enthused, even the reluctant.
To suggest there are only 30,000 high-powered bits of weaponry in this country is farcical.
This buyback was about confidence, but did the Government convince enough of us this was a worthwhile exercise? Did they convince sufficient gun owners it was worth making the sacrifice? Was the price right? Was there fairness? Were we doing this in a sensible logical and reasonable way?
If the final number is 30,000 then the answer is no. It will be a failed political exercise.
A failed logistical exercise, an exercise with no concrete conclusion or fact-based result.
And most importantly of all, an exercise that doesn’t come close to reassuring anyone that high-powered weapons falling into the wrong hands has been permanently prevented.
To suggest there are only 30,000 highpowered bits of weaponry in this country is farcical.