The Police Association head, Chris Cahill, has his panties in a bunch basically because this Government is no longer rubber stamping the association’s collective wet dreams when it comes to firearms legislation.
The police got used to by-passing legislation via Orders in Council and, as a result, have create a morass of illogical and nonsensical ‘legislation’ on the fly, effectively turning what was a good piece of legislation in to a mess.
And now they are whining that they won’t have a say. What they really mean is they can no longer drip stupid ideas into equally stupid ministers ears anymore.
The Police Association has hit out at the Government’s consultation processes for proposed firearm law changes, saying the group has been deliberately excluded and the Prime Minister should intervene.
However, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee has pushed back, saying the group will get the chance to contribute during the select committee process.
Association president Chris Cahill says he is concerned that some of the proposed law changes could be passed without public feedback after recent changes to shooting club legislation were made through Order of Council without consultation.
In an open letter to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Cahill said the group was particularly concerned about the review of the Firearms Registry, a digital inventory that stores details about licence holders and their firearms. The registry is expected to be fully operational in 2028.
NZ Herald
You know I’d have a lot more sympathy for them if they hadn’t destroyed the trust of firearms owners with their continued overzealous harassment of licenced firearms owners.
Add to that their defence of the shortened and truncated public feedback on firearms laws in 2019, and the total ignoring of subject matter experts on their stupid grab bag of knee jerk law changes that have actually seen an explosion of gun crime: exactly as we all predicted.
To know just how stupid the new laws were they said that certain guns were banned, they even used the word prohibited. But, I wonder if the general public realises that ‘prohibited’ actually means permitted, because I and plenty more people like me actually have ‘prohibited’ firearms, that we are licensed for, so they aren’t prohibited at all.
And I’d be more sympathetic if he didn’t just out right lie about things, like straw buyers who they state the register is designed to catch. Yet all the very few cases of straw buyers, about 3, that they caught was before the register was implemented or as a result of, you know, proper police work and investigation. They claim the register will help catch them yet all the straw buyers were caught without the register.
The Police Association had their go in 2019, with unfettered access to gun-grabbing politicians: now it’s time for the people directly affected by the knee-jerk legislative reactions to actually be listened to. Chris Cahill can join the queue for public submissions.
McKee said she understood Cahill was feeling left out of the process, but he alongside all New Zealanders would be able to make submissions as the four phases of firearm law reform progressed through Parliament.
“Mr Cahill complains the Police Association is being left out of consultation in relation to a review of the firearms registry, but that has not yet started.”
She said consultation undertaken so far had involved groups which were set up by the previous Government and the New Zealand Police.
“Cahill’s claims that we have been undertaking “restricted consultation” and the Police Association has been “deliberately excluded” demonstrate a paranoia ill-befitting of the organisation he represents.
“The purpose of a review is to evaluate evidence. This review will do the due diligence which should have been done by the previous Government.”
When almost every time the police make representations to parliament, they lie, obfuscate and mislead with every single claim they make, especially about the register.
Any large collector who has interacted with the register knows already that it is failing and an unmitigated disaster that has cost millions, doesn’t work as intended and will never work, but they are dug in on that position that they’ll just make stuff up to justify it.
By way of example, I own a Vickers Machine Gun, most of which are of .303 British calibre. Mine is different: it is one of two hundred made for the Egyptian Army at the end of World War II and subsequently lost in the Sinai to the Israelis in the Six Day War in 1967. They were re-barrelled in 8mm Mauser because Israel had massive stockpiles of war surplus ammunition.
When I registered it, the system demanded that I tell them how many rounds were in the box magazine. It wouldn’t accept reality: that it is belt fed and therefore has no box magazine. But the system wouldn’t let me register it unless I stipulated how many...so I said 200, because that’s how many rounds are in a full belt. That’s how stupid the register is.
Meanwhile the Police Association and their pals in various other government departments keep up the steady stream of bad news stories about firearms to justify their position. Take this video from Customs in collusion with the NZ Herald:
Anyone with half a brain will now be rolling on the floor at this clear idiot trying to deliver his rehearsed lines badly, even describing a cleaning kit as for a “M3 Machine Pistol”. For a start, a cleaning kit is not a prohibited item and secondly there is no such thing as a M3 machine pistol. The idiot reporter didn’t know either.
There is however an M3 submachine gun, which was made in World War II. It is a fine collectible firearm. Watch this video of Jerry Miculek firing one.
If, and when, the police and their union start to actually tell the truth about firearms, and only then, will I give them any credence.
Meanwhile they can join the queue for public submissions, in the meantime they can just shut the hell up.
