Common Sense Prevails in New Zealand!

[Death from Afar]

Tragically, an undercover policeman was shot dead by a high powered semi automatic air rifle last week- one of those swedish $2000 + Gas bottle jobs.

Unsurprisingly the calls went out to ban/restrict/ register whatever these sort of guns by an ignorant media. We had articles on the news showing menacing looking air rifle pellets . The police who run these things announced:

But Superintendent Ted Cox of Counties Manukau police doubted the speedier passage of the legislation would have made much difference.

"Some laws are good for honest people, but the criminal element don't always observe those and no matter what laws we have in place, they would generally find a way to obtain firearms," he said.

"The laws of course act as a restriction I guess to reduce the target audience, shall we say, ensuring better security so that fine upstanding people can access firearms.

"But there will still be burglaries and other ways that at some stage the criminal element will get hold of the firearms."

Law and order select committee chairman Ron Mark took a similar view.

"What everybody knows is that criminals don't follow any arms laws. It wouldn't matter if you made it illegal to own any firearms at all in this country," he told Radio New Zealand today.

Mr Mark said there had been tighter restrictions on firearms in Britain and Australia, "and the only thing that has happened is that more criminals have got more guns and used them more often".

Common sense from the powers that be! Who would have thought it!

 

[hoytinak]

At least the police are able to understand that a ban won't stop the criminals. Wish our goverment here in the US would understand that.

 

[Yellowfin]

If they're capable of understanding that much, do they have carry licenses in NZ and all the other good stuff we enjoy in free America?

 

[AZ Med18]

Nice a police dept that understand life.

 

[Let it Bleed]

Needing a license to do something is a restriction. Whether it is reasonable or not is a matter of opinion.

 

[johnwilliamson062]

can we get a link to original article here, would be nice to share that quote form a newspaper's site.

 

[ManDownUnder]

Better late than never but...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4690601a11.html

 

[Spinner]

Needing a license to do something is a restriction. Whether it is reasonable or not is a matter of opinion.

Yeah, but in New Zealand, we don't have a constitution that guarantees the rights of the people to keep and bear arms. There is no 2a outside of the USA.

Yes, we have firearms licences and part of that process is the vetting of people to ensure they are "fit and proper persons" to have access to and to use firearms and it ensures that they've had at least some training. While it may be distasteful to many Americans, we don't have the luxury of an explicit statement such as 2a. We're a lot better off than the Australians and things here could be much, much worse.

Thankfully our Police are reasonably happy with our firearms laws and despite the meddling from various politicians in the past there seems to be a real reluctance from the Police to change things. Long may it continue.

In at least one aspect, New Zealand is actually better off than the USA in terms of firearms. Sound moderators are unrestricted here. In NZ a sound moderator is not viewed as anything sinister and anybody could buy one off the shelf without a firearms licence in much they same way as they could buy a sling or a bipod or a scope. No $200 tax stamp, no forms to fill out, just pay for it and you're good to go.