Scheme to buy back guns ‘puzzling’
The MP for Rangitikei has doubts the Government’s gun buyback scheme will be successful.
Ian McKelvie, who is part of the Select Committee overseeing the gun reforms, says the scheme was to be fair and equitable but that hasn’t occurred.
“It hasn’t made any effort to attract the illegal guns in our community other than offering an amnesty, but if an amnesty was going to sort that, it would’ve sorted it years ago.
“By not offering money for those guns, they’re effectively not going to come out of the woodwork, so all the guns we wanted to get out of the marketplace are not going to come out.”
McKelvie says it’s those aspects of the scheme that are puzzling and indicates it may put some gun owners out of pocket.
“My argument is that a gun is a gun and you’ve now got to replace it, so the owners should be paid at a better value.”
More than 300 firearms have been identified on the list of firearms included in the buyback scheme.
The price brackets for the firearms range from 25 per cent of the base price for poor condition, 70 per cent of the base price for average condition, and 95 per cent of the base price for new or near-new condition.
“I think it’s going to give a lot of grief to the police as they work through this process because I don’t think the guns will come out of the woodwork as they were supposed to,” McKelvie says.
“I don’t think there are the amount of guns out there people think there are, but the risk is the Government isn’t paying enough for the guns and that’s going to force people underground which I hope it doesn’t, but I think there might be the tendency to do that.”
Police have announced that the Whanganui collection point for the amnesty and buy-back will be at Wanganui Racecourse from 10.30am to 3.30pm on July 26-28 and September 27-29. There will also be a collection point at Taihape Bowling Club on September 13-14 (10.30am-3.30pm).