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Neville Dodd
President
Sporting Shooters Association of New Zealand Inc
The revelation in yesterday’s NZ Herald that the IPCA, the police watchdog, and privacy commissioner have decided against an inquiry into the theft of documents carrying the details of thousands of gun owners from a disused police station in Auckland is a great disappointment to all those lawful gun owners affected and to the wider firearm owning community, says Sporting Shooters Association President Neville Dodd.
4000 documents containing personal information of licensed firearm owners over a 15-year period, mostly in the Auckland region were stolen in a burglary back in May of the old Central Auckland Police Station in Vincent St.
When licensed firearm owners transgress, even when it is a traffic offence, the police come down on us like a ton of bricks, seizing our firearms and suspending or revoking our licenses. Yet when police fail to keep our private information secure, putting us and our families at risk, there are no consequences for those responsible.
It seems as far as Police and those who monitor Police performance are concerned licensed firearm owners don’t matter.
We have to question the Police’s ability to keep the information contained in a register of all firearms secure. More importantly, given this appalling state of affairs will the firearms community have sufficient trust and confidence in Police security of their data to provide the information they require for the new Register?
