Firearms owners hand in 12,183 firearms at over 100 events held nationwide
NZ Police have now held 104 collection events and collected 12,183 firearms from around New Zealand so far.
Five weeks into the buy-back scheme, 7573 firearms owners have been processed, handing in a total of 10,844 prohibited firearms and 46,129 parts and accessories.
The amount compensated to firearms owners is a total of $22.4 million.
Over thirteen hundred of the firearms handed in to Police were under amnesty.
Deputy Commissioner Mike Clement says, “Firearms owners’ attitude towards this process has been outstanding.
“They have really engaged in the process and Police staff involved in the buy-back have heard positive feedback about the experience.
“I know this because I am attending events and speaking to gun owners.
“I really want to thank both the public and our team for making the first 100 collection events go so well,” he says.
More collection events are scheduled nationwide until the end of September and Police will then review where additional events are needed.
“We have focused on local collection events initially because we wanted to make it an easy process for firearms owners, and the collection points needed to be as accessible to the community as possible.
“So far more than 7000 firearms owners have found this option has worked for them and we encourage people to attend their local collection event as soon as possible,” says Mike Clement.
Bulk pick-ups are available now for those that have 10 or more firearms or 50 parts.
For those who wish to take up this option, we would ask that they complete the online notification accessible on the NZ Police website.
“From early September a number of dealers will be available as an option for people to drop their firearms into under buy-back or amnesty.
“This option will be preferable for some gun owners however we do want people to be aware that this is a slightly slower end-to-end process.
“After firearms have been handed in to dealers, Police will uplift these firearms and contact the owners to discuss the condition of the firearms against the price list,” says Mike Clement.
Police published an amended price list earlier this week for prohibited firearms and parts eligible under the buy-back scheme.
An additional 23 firearms have been included into the buy-back price list, bringing the total to 353 firearms now eligible for compensation.
To speed up the process at events, owners need to complete the online form on www.police.govt.nz before coming to an event – including listing each firearm and/or each individual part you are bringing along.
Ah yes, the politics of inclusion, where we turned on our gun owners after Christchurch and punished them for the action of the Australian terrorist.
Safety could have been achieved by making all centrefire semiautos E category (extremely highly vetted, extremely high security, zero incidence of gun crime), but no, moral hysteria was incited and agendas pushed through.
This story above has been the same endlessly repeated story run on every news channel in one form or another: how “happy” gun owners are, how “well” it’s all going. North Korea would be proud.
It’s bullshit spin of course.
Read the comments on these articles where they appear online, read the police association and Stuart Nashes Facebook pages to judge sentiment (at least the ones they haven’t deleted yet and no the vast majority of these posters are clearly not from overseas) these changes and how they have been done are despised by most gun owners.
Not a great state of affairs if we want maximum compliance, and with more compliance needed for upcoming registration.
Police threaten 5 years jail to firearms license holders who don’t hand back a now illegal gun,yet a couple of weeks back a criminal non license holder (who beat his wife) was caught with a pistol in his car and got home detention.
Who is the system seeking to punish?
It was estimated that there are maybe 350 000 firearms in NZ which have now been made illegal by the new law, only a small number of which are Mike Clements “evil by their nature” guns, most guns swept up are lever action .22s and shotguns or centre fire semiautos with small internal magazines.
Ask the police for a breakdown of how many guns are centrefire semiautos that could take a large magazine.
They won’t tell you but the number will be very small.
And don’t buy the lie that police don’t have an idea of how many guns there are in the country and what type – every single gun coming in to this country (except illegal gang smuggled guns) has had an import permit signed by police.
So 12 000 is a small drop in a bucket of 350 000.
Police will claim success no matter the final tally of course. Stop and think about what it means if the end tally isn’t close to 350 000.
Do you feel safer?
Keepcalmcarryon: “Ah yes, the politics of inclusion, where we turned on our gun owners after Christchurch and punished them for the action of the Australian terrorist.”
I agree. Right from the beginning, I’ve been ambivalent about how the government has handled the aftermath of the Christchurch shootings.
That ambivalence extends to the gun buy-back scheme. Even though intentions were of the best, the unintended consequences have been the effective criminalisation of a hitherto inoffensive, law-abiding group of citizens. And causing said citizens to be at the very least wary of further co-operation with the police, let alone being willing to be compliant with what the state requires by way of gun registration in the future.
“Police threaten 5 years jail to firearms license holders who don’t hand back a now illegal gun…”
This is completely extraordinary. I’m astonished that neither police nor government apparently see the sheer blinding idiocy of this. Were it not so serious for the license holders, I’d characterise it as Clochemerle-ish.
“So 12 000 is a small drop in a bucket of 350 000….Do you feel safer?”
I didn’t feel unsafe to begin with. Though the fact of the gangs having guns has always been something to be aware of.
And who expects that the gangs will hand in their guns? Pigs might fly…..
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