Police show there’ll be no mercy for gun hoarders
Any hope that police will take a soft approach to people flouting the new firearms legislation or attempting to improperly cash in on the attendant buyback scheme should have been well and truly dashed with a recent decision of the District Court at Hamilton.
An attempt by a Waikato gun hoarder to be compensated for 10 unregistered military-style fully automatic firearms he should not have had – even under the old legislation – and valued at about $46,000 was thrown out of court.
He was sentenced to three months’ community detention and 12 months intensive supervision for possessing them. The firearms had been seized from him several months before the Christchurch mosque shootings in March, which led to the new firearms legislation, and police told the court that they would therefore not be covered by the buyback scheme.
Police also said it would have been unconscionable for the defendant to receive any recompense from unlawfully possessing unregistered firearms. The judge also noted that the defendant had acted as a firearms vetting officer for the police and would have known the firearms he held should have been registered.
Before the new legislation, anyone with a standard firearm licence was able to buy a semiautomatic rifle, but fully automatic military weapons could only be held with a special category licence and had to be properly registered.
The new law, the Arms (Prohibited Firearms, Magazines, and Parts) Amendment Act (2019) now bans all military-style semiautomatic rifles and as well as high capacity magazines for rifles and shotguns. The new law also includes a buyback scheme and an amnesty to hand them in, which has now expired.
In spite of exemptions in the new law for professional pest control hunters to own semiautomatic rifles, and even a payment to have family heirloom type firearms modified to comply with the new restrictions, some firearm owners have continued to bleat about unfair treatment.
Their complaints have ranged from the disingenuous to the ridiculous and have been equalled only by the orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the use of 1080 for pest control.
There have been complaints that there was insufficient consultation, but the extensive police publicity campaign would have left few people in doubt about what the law required.
Owners of semi-automatic firearms in particular would have sifted carefully through the new legislation looking for ways around the restrictions.
They, more than most other people, would know exactly what the law requires of them.
There have also been some complaints that the compensation was insufficient, but market prices for second-hand firearms have been exceeded in most cases.
One of the most stupid suggestions was that some owners would be hiding valuable and heirloom firearms.
Any that do and get caught will rightly receive little sympathy from the courts.
As an active hunter for the best part of 60 years, I have never seen the need for a semi-automatic rifle. Most of the groups I ever hunted with over those years would not allow anyone with a self-loading rifle to join them. We could never tell at a glance if they were loaded and there was no need to be spraying high velocity long-range bullets around the bush.
Semi-automatic shotguns for waterfowl are a slightly different matter because they are usually used from a fixed position in a maimai and only have an effective hunting range of about 40 metres at the very most and a dangerous range of about 70m.
We are fortunate in New Zealand that hunting and target shooting are accepted by the wider, non-involved community as legitimate pursuits for those who enjoy outdoor activities. But this is not America. Ownership and use of firearms in New Zealand is a privilege not a right, in spite of some ill-informed comments from within the legal profession suggesting otherwise.
For most of our history, restrictions on firearm use and ownership have been relatively permissive compared to other parts of the world in spite of concerns by many at the lack of effective firearm control. That came to a head following a spate of firearm murders, and in 1996 the Government ordered an independent inquiry led by former judge Sir Thomas Thorp. His report, released in 1997, was the most comprehensive review of firearm controls in New Zealand for 150 years – but most of the recommendations were ignored.
My strong advice to anyone who has a banned firearm, or doubts about their firearms, is to talk to the police sooner rather than later. Even though the amnesty has expired, you might still get away with it. Stubbornly hang on to them and get caught and the penalties could include a hefty fine, loss of a firearms licence and jail time. There will be few excuses and no one else to blame.