I have recently completed my firearms licence renewal process. Despite forethought and planning on my part, it turned into a nightmare. I have had a fireams licence since I was 15 years old, some 37 years. It has been renewed twice, once when our “lifetime” licences were unilaterally disbanded and again 10 years ago. Somehow I now have to fill out a comprehensive 35 page document, including new medical information. I then paid my renewal fee and submitted the form on the 25th November 2020. My licence expired on 25 February 2021, so I was three months early.
Then I waited…and waited. It was not until the beginning of February that I was contacted by Police to arrange interviews. It was not until the 1st of March that my referees were contacted. By this time my licence had expired.
When your licence expires it becomes very limiting. Let me explain. Despite the fact it was beyond my control, the guy in charge of licencing, Mike McIlraith, has instructed vetters to tell people in my predicament that, until the Police get around to issuing the new licence, we are deemed to have expired licences. That means that, according to McIlraith, all firearms and ammunition must be removed from your premises and stored with someone else. Despite this, I obtained a letter from Police saying precisely the opposite…that my licence was still valid despite expiring. A fat lot of use that letter was: no one would accept it, I couldn’t buy ammunition, attend the gun club, or even transport a firearm in my car with an expired licence.
Almost two months after my licence expired my new licence arrived in the mail. The total time taken was almost five months. I’m reliably informed that I “should count myself lucky” as many others are taking much longer, some over a year to process. Which makes this news story at Radio NZ interesting:
Hunters in New Zealand are becoming increasingly frustrated as months-long delays in the processing of firearm licence renewals is forcing some hunters to sit the season out. Police are working through a backlog of firearm licence applications, with approximately 8,900 in the pipeline – of which 3,200 are licence renewals. They’re now asking people to apply for renewals at least four months ahead of the expiry date. But for those already waiting for months, the clock is ticking with the deer roar already well underway and duck shooting season just weeks away from starting on May the first.
Radio New Zealand
I have made enquiries and spoken with several vetting officers around the country. I am told that the numbers of expired licences are well over 9,000, contrary to the numbers given in the RNZ news story.
The problem is so bad that vetting officers are directly asking Mike McIlraith what the situation is, especially with rural licenced firearms owners who need rifles for pest control or to humanely put down sick or injured animals. McIlraith’s response is nothing short of arrogant, doctrinaire and dictatorial. In his opinion, it is too bad that the licence has expired. That the process will take as long as the process needs to, and that irrespective of fault for the delays, even if it is the Police, these owners MUST remove ALL firearms and ammunition from their premises until such time as Police deign to renew their licence.
Word from vetters is that they are sick of this approach as it places them and the people they are vetting in an invidious position and almost totally as a result of Police obdurate and intransigent behaviour.
Even Blind Freddy, though clearly not Mike McIlraith, can see that it is Police policy, processes, procedures, and excessive documentation that is grinding everything to a halt on new and renewing licences. The situation is not much better for permits to procure, but that is another story for another day.
Firearms licence holders pay renewal fees but we are not getting the service that we should expect. Imagine if driver licence renewals were as onerous or delayed, (and as more people are killed every year by vehicles, perhaps they should be), there’d be chaos as people couldn’t drive for months while they waited for their licence to be renewed.
It is starting to look like that these delays are part of a deliberate policy, by Police, to further stigmatise and annoy innocent firearms owners. Many people won’t rattle the cage for fear of being persecuted further by Police. That sort of gutlessness just empowers the bullies.
Sadly, organisations like COLFO have sold us down the river in appeasing the ongoing bullying from Police. It is time to rattle cages, it is time to stand proud. It is time to tell the Police, politicians and anyone else trying to harm our sports, hobbies and lifestyle that enough is enough, there will be no more changes, and that if they try there will be consequences both legally and electorally.
I will no longer be silent. Shortly I will announce a new organisation that will fight for your rights, and we won’t be compromising.
Enough IS enough. The very thing that politicians have tried very hard to avoid, the establishment of a well funded, politically active lobby group to look after the interests of licenced firearms owners, IS going to happen.
They only have themselves to blame for the introduction of NRA style campaigning into New Zealand. They’ve taken diabolical liberties with gun owners. They will take them no more.
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