Neville Dodd
President
Sporting Shooters Association of New Zealand Inc
The 1983 Arms Act that licensed owners rather than their guns was a great success. The requirement for vetting licence applicants, secure storage of their firearms and safety training saw accidents involving young people almost disappear, unintentional shootings decline and theft of firearms fall. Only those vetted to be fit and proper were licensed to own and use firearms and a good safety record improved on each year. Obtaining a licence was a relatively straightforward process that took about 2-3 months. The shooting community bought into this process so compliance with the law was good.
That all changed in 2017 when police started meddling with the licensing process and failed to follow their own procedures which ultimately lead to the tragedy of the Christchurch massacre.
From 2019 the government has seen fit to legislate ever more strict controls on the ownership of firearms aided by police who produce ever more complicated supporting regulations. All these new laws have achieved is to bog police down in a miasma of bureaucracy, that has inter alia seen long delays in processing licence applications, with 200 more staff taken on to manage the backlog. Police are set to spend $ 1 million a week to administer this mess including the registration of all 1.5 million legally held firearms.
It is interesting to note that parliament allowed 5 years to fully populate this new firearm register, yet police are proposing to allow owners only 14 days to register their arms items after a trigger event (such as a sale or purchase).
The upshot of all these changes is that it is now much harder to renew or obtain a firearm licence, a fact freely admitted by Police Minister Hon Chris Hipkins: “Police are under a lot of pressure when it comes to firearms licence renewals and new applications as well, and that is a result of the decisions that this Parliament has made to make it more difficult for people to get firearms licences and to have their licences renewed,” he said in the House.
“Where have all these new laws got us?” says Sporting Shooters President Neville Dodd. “Certainly New Zealand is not a safer place as illustrated by the spate of gang shootings over the past year and the significant increase in AOS call outs.
It is highly likely that the Government and (especially) Police overreach will rebound and New Zealand could become less safe in the future as those wishing to own and use firearms are put off
by complex laws and a difficult process to gain a licence, with the undesirable outcome that compliance will decline.
The government and police have clearly failed to take note of the old adage, keep it simple and people will comply.
