As we await the Royal Commission report into the unfortunate massacre at Christchurch, some others have been digging into why, precisely, the massacre occurred.
Those in the firearms community have known for a very long time that the massacre could have been avoided if Police had done even the most basic of checks, and actually followed the law in vetting Brenton Tarrant for his firearms licence.
Now we can see just how badly the Police failed:
A failure by police to follow their own administrative guidelines allowed the March 15 terrorist to get his gun licence, according to an investigation by leading members of New Zealand’s Muslim community.
The Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ) wrote a report for the Royal Commission into the attack.
It found the terrorist should never have got the gun licence because he did not have appropriate referees – but police gave it to him anyway.
Mahrukh Sarwar and Nour Malak investigated how police let the terrorist get a gun licence that allowed him to buy the weapons he used in last year’s attack.
“If the police had followed their own processes, we are saying they should not have given him the licence,” Sarwar said.
The police forms show one referee must be a spouse, partner, or next-of-kin who normally resides with or is related to you, and the other must be a person who is unrelated to you, over 20 years old, and knows you well.
But the terrorist’s referees were his online gaming friend and the online gaming friend’s father.
The young Muslims say this was an administrative failure by police that had a huge cost.
“If they followed through their own policies that they set, 51 lives would have gone home on that day [on March 15],” Malak said.
Newshub
So, a completely avoidable tragedy, but the Police and their political masters moved quickly to shift blame and then penalised licenced firearms owners for their own failures.
“Due to increased demand in other police priority areas, fewer resources have been available for firearms licensing activities in the 2017-18 year,” it says.
Both Sarwar and Malak believe the terrorist should never have been able to get a gun licence.
The Police charge fees for applying for licences, and subsequent endorsements. It should be self funding. They’ve basically abrogated their responsibility, nicked the fees for the consolidated budget, and failed to follow procedure and the law, which resulted in the unnecessary deaths of 51 people.
They then persecuted the firearms community for good measure when the entire blame can and should be sheeted home to the Police.
The last line of the Newshub article says they are praying this never happens again.
Those prayers are unlikely to be heeded because so far the Police have avoided any culpability for their actions. With the Royal Commission evidence now shrouded in secrecy we can all see the whitewash coming.
The hapless minister in charge, Stuart Nash, has been replaced, probably because he’s got some serious embarrassment coming his way. It is never a good look to lie in Official Information Act requests, and its never a good look to demonise and persecute innocent people for the failings of your own department.
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