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

Shooters: All of you - endorsed or otherwise, please read this.

New Zealanders have long enjoyed the pastime of hunting, target shooting and all other lawful recreational uses of firearms. Indeed, it is part of our national heritage. A great many of us have been brought up among firearms, many are reliant upon it to put food on the table. Many are reliant upon it to destroy pests which would otherwise prevent food arriving at our tables.

There are also a significant number of sports shooters across various pistol, rifle and shotgun disciplines. Our men and women have and continue to win high acclaim throughout the years on the sports field in the safe pursuit of their shooting discipline. Fundamentally we all enjoy the same sport, regardless of discipline.

Unfortunately, however, there are those who seek to impose further restrictions on law-abiding firearm owners without any substantial evidence to support these restrictions. They also seek to promote these restrictions outside the scope of New Zealand firearm law as defined by the Arms Act 1983 which is illegal.

As to why these agendas are being pursued is frankly not important right now. I urge you to familiarise yourself with the Arms Act 1983.

Arms Act 1983 No 44 (as at 01 March 2017), Public Act Contents – New Zealand Legislation

Admittedly it is not easy reading but I urge every one of you to attempt to familiarise yourself with it as there are certainly policies that have changed recently (note: policies are NOT law) that could potentially become law. These will potentially affect all licensed firearm owners.

These are changes that are occurring behind closed doors.

These should not be the actions of a democratically elected government.

We all have the power to change it. There are people in the recognised legal fraternity that have years of knowledge and experience with dealing with this. To support a recognised legal entity who is experienced in looking after your legal interests as a firearm owner please support Nicholas Taylor - Barrister BA LLB.

For more information concerning firearms legislation and various other aspects pertaining to the subject please consult the KiwiGunblog. I encourage the observer to keep an open mind and view the facts and references as presented.

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Originally Posted by Nicholas Taylor

23 March 2017 - I do not usually contribute to forums as it not the correct way for me deal with or give proper, considered legal advice, however in this circumstance I can indicate the following:

The New Zealand Licenced Firearms Dealers (NZLFD) Trust has instructed me to being preparing for a Judicial Review proceeding (pursuant to the Judicature Act 1908) to be filed in June of this year against the Commissioner of Police. The NZLFD Trust is a registered legal entity for the purposes of this action. It has now received for legal services, from a total of 28 licenced firearms dealers, organisations and individuals in New Zealand, a total of approximately $30,000 the Trust Target is $50,000. As with any litigation that is commenced, it is critical to have enough funds to pay for legal costs, court fees and witness expenses, but in addition, to have sufficient available if the decision goes against you to pay for costs if awarded. Obviously if successful, then an award of costs with be folded back into the Trust for potential action for another time, or appeals if appropriate.

The current issues that the Trust is asking me to seek clarification on, by way of declarations from the court, are:

1. Is the police policy in regards to “Safes and Security” lawful or ultra vires their authority under the Arms Act 1983 or Arms Regulation 1992?
2. Is the police policy in regards to the measurement of MSSA firearms by police lawful or ultra vires their authority under the Arms Act 1983 or Arms Regulation 1992?
3. Is the police policy in regards to the imposition of conditions on the importation for restricted firearms and air guns and other standard firearms by the police lawful or ultra vires their authority under the Arms Act 1983 or Arms Regulation 1992?
4. Is the police policy in regards to the mail order form, in regards to both standard firearms and restricted air guns, lawful or ultra vires their authority under the Arms Act 1983 or Arms Regulation 1992?

I am currently in the process of filing three individual funded appeals/originating applications in the District Court in Auckland pursuant to s 62 and s 62 (1) (c) (ii) of the Arms Act 1983, to which there may be a certain degree of overlap possible. Otherwise I have begun to draft and correlate information, affidavits and documentary evidence to support each of the above mentioned issues for the June (target) action to commence. If you have had any issues or have documents in support of any of these issues please contact me by email.

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Thanks for sharing Ryan, would have been good to see a few people replying to this thread. Unfortunately most just don't give a toss.

Whilst it would have been good to have some discussion on the topic, my hope is that people have at least read it and taken on board what is happening around them. Today is the day folks - L&O select committee recommendations (read police's recommendations) are going to be made public. Reading is from 1000 to 1130:

https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/s...e-of-meetings/

Yep, am watching with interest.
We are also planning a shooting competition towards the end of May in which all proceeds will go towards the NZLFD Trust. Just have to confirm the date and we'll start advertising it. In the theme of our last couple of shoots we are hoping to put about $1000 into the NZLFD Trust fund from it. I can't do that personally but I can certainly run a shoot and donate the funds from it.

Jonathon Young is also my local MP. Be interesting to read the L&O Select Committee findings and depending on what they recommend go and have a chat with him about it.

I do give a toss and will be supporting with dollars where and when I can, but the pessimistic side of me can't help thinking that all the different firearms user groups will be falling over themselves throwing other firearms user groups under the bus in the vain hope they can keep there own stuff. Please god I hope I am wrong but ....................................

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Originally Posted by mikee

I do give a toss and will be supporting with dollars where and when I can, but the pessimistic side of me can't help thinking that all the different firearms user groups will be falling over themselves throwing other firearms user groups under the bus in the vain hope they can keep there own stuff. Please god I hope I am wrong but ....................................

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Well if people do adopt that attitude, they are stupid quite frankly. Selfish and stupid. They need to put the common good ahead of their own interests.

May be different this time. Maybe. I've received messages from hunting friends that in the past haven't given a toss, but this time they're asking about what we need to do.

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Originally Posted by Ryan

Well if people do adopt that attitude, they are stupid quite frankly. Selfish and stupid. They need to put the common good ahead of their own interests.

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I agree but past experience in other countries as well as here would indicate differently sadly

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Originally Posted by mikee

I agree but past experience in other countries as well as here would indicate differently sadly

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Go no further than our closest neighbour to where I lived the Gun Club group publicly tried to distance themselves from the other shooting groups. (We are all respectable businessmen blah blah.)

And all ready at home a group has come across the same in recent past.

Same as the critical sentiment expressed towards the AR shooters by non AR shooters. I am non AR but understand their interest/enthusiasm.

Should be about to kick off shortly - I don't have access to freeview otherwise I'd watch. Channel 36 I believe.

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Originally Posted by zimmer

Go no further than our closest neighbour to where I lived the Gun Club group publicly tried to distance themselves from the other shooting groups. (We are all respectable businessmen blah blah.)

And all ready at home a group has come across the same in recent past.

Same as the critical sentiment expressed towards the AR shooters by non AR shooters. I am non AR but understand their interest/enthusiasm.

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i never thought i would own a "mouse gun" but they are fun and sort of like ikea furniture, you can keep swapping bits and improving them. unfortunately the wife seems to wan to own it despite the fact she has an sks to play with (among other toys)

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Originally Posted by Richard Prosser

Update: The L&O Select Committee has accepted the 5th and final draft of their Report on the Firearms Inquiry, by majority vote.

It will be tabled, at the earliest, tomorrow or Friday (probably), at which point it will become publicly available.

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Great.

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Originally Posted by mikee

but the pessimistic side of me can't help thinking that all the different firearms user groups will be falling over themselves throwing other firearms user groups under the bus in the vain hope they can keep there own stuff. Please god I hope I am wrong but ....................................

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZklAh26uYA

I know things are vastly different in the US but the start of this video applies to NZ and what is going on currently as we speak.

Very relevant clip. Well thought out.

Unfortunately most people against guns are just too stupid to reason with.



Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

Common theme here is not learning from past experiences and that things cannot change. Change is borne not from an idea but an action. Easy to suggest to someone, "hey come and shoot with me". That's an idea. Actually take someone there and show them. That's an action.

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Originally Posted by Richard Prosser

Parliament isn't sitting today, but we are reliably informed that the Report will be publicly available later on today. We have people standing by to let us know as soon as that happens.

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Yep, now we see all the clever recommendations they've come up with. The only one that seems overdue is locking out gang members and affiliates from ownership.

As for individual registration of the actual firearms, where do I begin..? Obviously the committee didn't bother taking notice of the Canadian failure.

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-...ed-owning-guns

It's up now:

https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/r...gal-possession

So they acknowledge that registration is pointless, and they're not gonna do it, but they are gonna record all the serial numbers of your guns, and make everybody go through the permit to procure process to sell a cat guns...what?

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Originally Posted by Beavis

So they acknowledge that registration is pointless, and they're not gonna do it, but they are gonna record all the serial numbers of your guns, and make everybody go through the permit to procure process to sell a cat guns...what?

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Sounds like registration in another guise to me. :O_O:

What a fucking joke

The way they want it to be, they may as well just get rid of all firearm categories, and make EVERYBODY meet the vetting and security requirements for E category. This proposal is a total cluster fuck.

Yeah it conrtradicts itself below are the quotes. The MP's involved, can only be described as stupid. I will be emailing all of them:

We recommend that instead of creating a firearms register, the legislation be amended to
require the Police to record the serial numbers of firearms owned by licence holders.


We recommend 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.





We recommend that a permit to procure be required for the sale or transfer of all firearms.
The permit process would give details of firearms transactions to the Police and it would
allow them to slowly build up a database of firearms possessed by individuals.

"...as a result of this discovery and a general increase in firearm seizures by the Police".

Still yet to see any data provided by police to substantiate the "increase in firearm seizures".

Also would make it illegal to sell rifles etc on this site withput Police approval

4 that it create a Police registration process for websites that wish to facilitate the
buying, selling, or trading of firearms, parts of firearms, or ammunition online. It would be
an offence to operate such a website without current registration (page 8).

https://www.facebook.com/firearmowne...697195769532:0

Aside from the entire recommendation being a contradicting and virtually unenforceable waste of our tax-paying money - it does absolutely nothing to address the problem of illegal firearm possession. It lists four different sources where illegal firearms are obtained.

Funnily enough the recommendation focuses exclusively on licensed firearm owners and completely ignores the others. I didn't see any recommendation for increased Customs screening of incoming shipments for example. Criminals don't care about permits to procure or endorsements or security standards. None of this is going to affect them.

The arms officers barely cope with the existing workload - the very document itself says that they are under-resourced and now they are suggesting a Permit to Procure to be required for every firearm purchase and in the same breath saying that registration is unenforceable but yet that's exactly what they are trying to do. They aren't even capable of doing a good bullshitting job!

We recommend to the Government that the law be amended to make it clear that
the secure storage requirements must be met to the satisfaction of the Police, before a
licence or endorsement can be issued.

It wants clarity on the storage requirements yet, strangely is not clear on what these requirements are? As for the "satisfaction of the Police"... That sets a dangerous precedent in my opinion. Based on their recent track record, police's "satisfaction" can change depending on which way the wind blows. I'm referring to OAL measurement of MSSA as an example, originally it was measured extended - now it's apparently measured collapsed.

So my 6mm thick safe may suddenly become "unsatisfactory" tomorrow and police will require a 10mm safe to be installed. Effectively a possible attempt to price shooters out of the hobby.

It wouldn't surprise me if firearm and ammunition sales went through the roof in light of this select committee recommendation.

They mention that they don't think A cat security needs to be as restrictive as pistols, MSSA etc so there is a light precident.

Regulation 28 sets out tighter security requirements for pistols, MSSAs, and restricted
weapons. One option for increasing the security of firearms would be to extend the
security standards for pistols, MSSAs, and restricted weapons to “A” category firearms. We
recommend that the Police undertake further work to determine appropriate security
standards for “A” category firearms. We think that the current standards need to be
increased. However, we do not think that the new standards need to be as restrictive as
those for pistols, MSSAs, and restricted weapons.

I'm sure arms officers around the country are keen on a huge increase in their workload.

It's about what I expected i.e. meets the requirements of the hidden agenda, not the stated agenda which has been put in the too hard basket. Hidden agenda being to progressively disarm the populous. That is the legal, law abiding populous.

I think we all pretty well knew the outcome would be like this.

If only we could all vote with our feet on this single issue.

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Originally Posted by Beavis

I'm sure arms officers around the country are keen on a huge increase in their workload.

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Mad keen bro, I'm still waiting on an import permit for my stock lol.

It is also terrible what they listed under Criminal Offending

Criminal offending with firearms

12 that it review the penalties in the Arms Act 1983 (page 18).
13 that the law be amended so that where a dealer has committed an offence under the
Arms Act 1983, the court must treat this as an aggravating factor at sentencing (page 18).
14 that the Police undertake further work to determine appropriate security standards
for “A” category firearms (page 19).
15 that the law be amended to make it clear that the secure storage requirements must
be met to the satisfaction of the Police, before a licence or endorsement can be issued
(page 19).
16 that it extend the power under regulation 29 to allow the Police to enter premises
to inspect the security of “A” category firearms (page 19).
17 that the Arms Act 1983 be amended so that failure to comply with the storage
regulations must result in revocation of a firearms licence (page 19).

How is point 14, 15 or 16 criminal?

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Originally Posted by Beavis

I'm sure arms officers around the country are keen on a huge increase in their workload.

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Unfortunately, when you are overloaded already any additional load has no effect. You just adopt an attitude of "I can only do so much in an 8 hour day". Anything not done that day just gets pushed fwd.

It's beyond obvious they don't care about dealing with criminals and the misuse of firearms the logical way mentioned above ^^^ This only effects the law-abiding, plain & simple.

As for this "registration is un-enforceable but we'll do it anyway scheme" what on earth will that lead to I wonder??

Kiss my ass select committee, you're an embarrassment to us all.

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Originally Posted by Sasquatch

It's beyond obvious they don't care about dealing with criminals and the misuse of firearms the logical way mentioned above ^^^ This only effects the law-abiding, plain & simple.

As for this "registration is un-enforceable but we'll do it anyway scheme" what on earth will that lead to I wonder??

Kiss my ass select committee, you're an embarrassment to us all.

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Easy, the sale of pvc pipe and end caps will jump, and thousands of firearms wont be registered.

I'm going to be visiting/emailing and calling my local MP for Hunua ad nuseum 'Tea Party' style to make my point.
Lots of shooting clubs in that electorate.

If he doesn't live up to expectations, I'll be campaigning for the party that does.

Problem is that all the parties will agree with the proposals because they will be seen by the general public as being tough on crime.

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Originally Posted by stug

Problem is that all the parties will agree with the proposals because they will be seen by the general public as being tough on crime.

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If only their was one that put New Zealand First? Imagine that.

This whole thing would have been brewing in the background for a while. They were just waiting for the right event to happen to push it.