Thread: Shooting: The sport all of us enjoy - do your part in preserving the ability to do so

in the third paragraph of the introduction they wrote "Thus, our recommendations aim to reduce the flow of firearms to criminals, gangs, and those who do not have a licence, without unfairly impinging on law-abiding firearms users."

yet by their own comments and recommendations, they seem to have disregarded the criminal element and have tried to place the burden right back on law abiding "fit and proper" persons.

Recommendation to the Government that the permit to procure process be extended to cover the sale or transfer of all firearms. Permit to procure for ALL firearms- It is already evident by the delays in processing that the Police cannot cope with the volume of work they have now, and this would likely increase the required resources many times over, and these resources would be better suited to targeting ACTUAL crimes. Also with a database and increased access to this by large numbers of people means it will essentially be a list of where you can steal what you are looking for....Criminal shopping list? And being electronic, the list of those who will have access will be huge. These registration lists are inaccurate, and become unwieldy and inaccurate. By their own admission, the paper based system was 66% inaccurate and from my professional experience, adding computers to this does NOT make it any more prone to accuracy. In fact, it will make it easier for larger numbers of people to access(and potentially alter) the information including non police personnel (Trade me is even specifically mentioned even though it is a corporate and insecure site.) And what does it gain? Registration and permits to procure will effectively become a bureaucratic entanglement where the only people who want to use it will be the very people who should NOT have access to that information.
Recommendation to the Government that the Police investigate the creation of a category of restricted semi-automatic firearm (rifle and shotgun) to replace the MSSA firearm endorsement category. There are so many semi auto 22 rifles alone (Think Ruger 10/22) that are not MSSA. To make these MSSA will not make any difference to the firearms going to criminals. In fact this will likely INCREASE the number of firearms being dumped into criminals hands as the cost of complying with the law (getting a license endorsement and / increased security costs) will far exceed the value of the rifle. An endorsement costs $200 and the 6mm safe is $500 to $1000 or more, where the rifles such as the Ruger 10/22 etc are $400 to $500 brand new and often half that for second hand. The cheapest option for owners will be to "give" them to crims" simply so they do not end up holding onto them. Add this to the many many semi autos out there (one of the cheapest rifles sold in NZ new is a semi auto) and this whole idea can be seen for the impractical and stupid idea that it really is. A better suggestion would be reduce the entire category back to A category and apply the endorsement for permission to own the large capacity magazines. Make the restrictions "specific and measurable" and not open to interpretation. How does the shape of a handle make a firearm more or less dangerous? Does the colour of a car do the same? If a car has a rear spoiler, does that mean it can go faster? The whole MSSA debacle and the definition problems have occurred because of an emotive and reactionary approach rather than a common sense and realistic approach. Clearly the government is able to learn from its errors. We have seen this in the way we now have LAMS motorcycles as an improvement on the 250cc restriction we used to have for learner riders. Common sense and someone who understood the dynamics of the problem was able to address this and made it safer.



Recommendation to the Government that the Arms Act 1983 be amended to clearly state that a gang member or prospect must not be considered a fit and proper person to possess firearms and therefore must not hold a firearms licence.Finally a bit of common sense.
Recommendation to the Government that the law be amended to require the Police to record the serial numbers of all firearms possessed by licence holders upon renewal of their licence or inspection of their premises. If this registration is such a good idea, why did Canada abandon it for being too expensive and not providing any actual practical use?