The time for change is now
I listened carefully to ACT MP David Seymour’s speech during Parliament’s response to the attack on the Christchurch mosques. Seymour expressed his sympathies sincerely, but then came the underlying messages from ACT. He said a number of things such as ‘‘the best way to show defiance is to refuse to erode our free society’’. Well, Mr Seymour, the majority of us do not feel free while large numbers of military-style weapons remain available in New Zealand.
As former Australian prime minister John Howard so aptly said, ‘‘when people talk about ‘we need more time’, this is code for do nothing.’’
We have waited far too long for improved firearms control. The proposed legislative changes are sensible and moderate. The time for change is now.
Jill Pettis, Martinborough
Sanders support
Praise from Senator Bernie Sanders, who is a leading candidate to become America’s 46th president, that our gun law change is being reformed, will be a great boost to our prime minister.
Sanders is quoted as saying America must follow our lead, and also take on the powerful lobby group the National Rifle Association.
Brian Collins, Aro Valley [abridged]
We’re being bullied
While the sheep of New Zealand applaud banning certain weapons, the larger issue is ignored. On March 15 we lost democratic control of Parliament, and policymakers. We became a ‘‘take it or leave it’’ dictatorship.
What else does the prime minister not like? This incident was perpetrated by a foreign national, non-resident with a gun licence (why?), immigration missed previous travel, watchdogs missed online activity, complaint ignored by Dunedin arms officer.
Government agencies failed. Government is now shifting blame to a minority, responsible firearms users who can discern fantasy from reality, and believe in a democratic process.
The 250,000 registered gun owners, 2.6 million active voters, 9.6 per cent of the electoral roll, will question this absolute authority at the next election.
The issue is not whether we should change gun laws, but how they should change. Government agencies need to be held to account for their failings. A royal commission of inquiry would have been the correct option – one person does not speak for New Zealand. Singling out legitimate firearms owners is unacceptable.
Removing emotion, the facts are the prime minister has just attacked a minority society and bullied the nation. Friday, March 15, 2019: the day democracy died.
Dean Sewell, Havelock North
A necessary move
New Zealand used to have a firearms registry maintained manually by police. This was difficult to keep up to date and to access. A computerised national system was included in the specifications for the Whanganui computer system which serviced police, transport and justice for some 30 years from 1978. My company contracted to provide the programming.
All the software to computerise the gun registry was written and tested as part of the contract. But the database was never transferred from the manual system to the computer, and a few years later the decision was made to license people not guns.
New software would have to be written, and the task of collecting and maintaining the information is considerable, but in my view it is necessary.
With appropriate legal backing, this would be a useful deterrent to the misuse of weapons and unnecessary ownership. Present owners would find such a system oppressive until they got used to it.
Perce Harpham, Lower Hutt [abridged]
Track the guns
Hearing that some 7000 fastaction, military-style guns are in public hands without any tracking by police is chilling.
The naivety of NZ is now being given a shakeup. In the buyback, 7000 of those guns need to be accounted for.
Rob Buchanan, Kerikeri