Since the Christchurch terror attack, the media hand in glove with the government have done their very best to demonise gun owners. Now the Deputy Police Commissioner Mike Clement has gone one step further… he is demonising inanimate objects!
Guns cannot be “evil” in their nature, as he claims, any more than other inert pieces of wood, metal or plastic. The people holding the guns committing crimes are the evil ones. If guns are evil, then spoons cause obesity, and pencils, pens and keyboards cause spelling mistakes.
Police are hitting back at claims the gun buyback won’t make New Zealand safer, since bad guys won’t be the ones handing over their weapons.
[…] But Clement said it doesn’t matter who owns the guns now – as long as they exist, they’re a threat.
“I can tell you that there are far too many guns that are evil in their nature in this country…
[…] “If we take tens of thousands of firearms off the streets during the next six months, then I absolutely think New Zealand has to be a safer place.”
[…] He added that police are working on how to take newly illegal guns off gang members and others who don’t give them up.
“Of course we’re not going to have people walking up to a collection point if you’re a gang member… and handing it across to police.”
When presented with evidence from Australia that a gun buyback will not make New Zealand safer, Deputy Police Commissioner Mike Clement disagreed and became overbearing in the TV interview.
[…] ACT leader David Seymour […] told Newshub […] it wouldn’t make New Zealanders any safer.
“People who are prepared to line up in the full public glare and hand in their firearms at below-market rates are not the people we should be worried about,” […]
His view is backed up by Australian homicide researcher Samara McPhedran. She told Magic Talk in June that gun buyback schemes don’t really achieve what officials think they will.
“Based on the Australian experience and international evidence, there is very little evidence to suggest the path New Zealand is taking, and the path that Australia took in the 1990s, has any real impact on public health and safety,” she said.
“That the people that tend to hand in guns aren’t the high risk people who tend to be involved with firearm violence.”
But Clement said it doesn’t matter who owns the guns now – as long as they exist, they’re a threat.
Newshub
Clement is living in cloud cuckoo land. The kinds of people currently handing in their guns are not criminals so handing in their guns does not equal getting guns out of the hands of criminals. Clement tries to say that good guys with their guns securely locked away are part of the problem because sometimes criminals break into their homes and steal their firearms. It is a very weak argument indeed.
The vast majority of firearms in the hands of criminals are diverted from the legitimate fleet – in other words, they are stolen in burglaries.
“I’m not blaming gun owners for that – they have security, we have more determined criminals who are prepared to break in… and steal those guns. That’s the vast majority of guns that we find in the hands of criminals.”
Imagine if I said that because certain types of cars are often stolen and used for boy racing that the law-abiding owners should hand them in to ensure that they don’t end up in the hands of criminals.
I can tell you right now that every person handing in a gun to the police will take their nice fat wad of government cash down to the local gun store to buy a replacement gun or two.
Meanwhile, the bad guys who are the real danger to police and the public won’t hand them in at all.
