Gun laws ‘breach rights’ – disabled hunter says
A Marlborough hunter with a disability says new gun laws mean he can no longer fill his freezer with wild meat.
Spring Creek man Stephen Tiplady is calling for an exemption to the new gun laws but says he is being ‘‘fobbed off’’ by the Government. He has been using a semi-automatic centre fire rifle to hunt deer, pigs and goats since he lost an arm and leg in a motor cycle accident in 1977.
‘‘I believe it’s a breach of my rights as a severely disabled New Zealander,’’ Tiplady said.
‘‘We live off what we get but I can’t do that now.’’ Tiplady uses an AR15 military style semiautomatic to hunt.
If he was not provided with an exemption to use a semiautomatic, ‘‘that’s it’’, he said.
‘‘By taking that rifle out of the market, they’ve taken my ability to go shooting.’’
A week after the Christchurch mosque attacks that killed 51 people in March, the Government banned sales of ‘‘military-style’’ semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines.
More than 500 banned guns, collectively worth $1 million, were surrendered at the first buyback event in Christchurch on Saturday.
Tiplady said he would hand in his firearms but said the new laws had given no thought to people who would struggle to use a bolt action or lever action rifle safely. He said he could fire a single shot gun but was unable to quickly reload. ‘‘If you maim the animal, you haven’t got a followup shot,’’ Tiplady said.
Tiplady was 13 years old when he started shooting. ‘‘My brother was a policeman and he taught me, so I learnt firearms safety from the best,’’ he said.
After his accident in 1977, Tiplady said he represented New Zealand as a competitive shooter in disabled air weapons competitions and reached eighth in the world. More recently, he would shoot on private farms and had set himself up with a fourwheeler which he called his ‘‘offroad wheelchair’’. The Can-Am side-by-side motorbike and trailer had been set up for shooting at a cost of $20,000, he said.
He also used gun rests and holders, including spotlight torches at a cost of $3500.
He had contacted the prime minister’s office twice but had not received a response.
A spokeswoman for Police Minister Stuart Nash said a number of semi-automatics were still legal, and government-subsidised modifications were available for other weapons to ensure they complied. The spokeswoman said the firearms that were prohibited were ‘‘the most dangerous weapons’’, the assault rifles and military style semi-automatics ‘‘which are designed for killing people’’. The prohibition of military style semi-automatics was to ensure a terror attack like the March 15 one could never happen again.