Posts by Matthew Poole
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Oh, right, I get it. You're back to talking about Molenaar. That would be were held by him legally. Past tense. His firearms licence expired in 2002, 10 years after the change to the licensing regime. So, no, they weren't legally owned by Molenaar at all. He owned restricted weapons, so not just run-of-the-mill rifles and shotguns, but other weapons that would require extra vetting and security. Shockingly enough, he didn't hold a firearms licence and he didn't register them. Again, there was a registration requirement and it wasn't met. The registry was there, and the firearms weren't on it. A registry for all firearms will change what, exactly?
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A S - pretty sure the Police have confirmed that these weapons were held by him legally, but hey those silly laws.
I'm totally mystified by this comment, by the way. A legal collector breaks the law, and you want more laws? Why would he suddenly not break those laws too? He passed on restricted firearms to unlicensed persons, and that's a maximum of four years in jail. But he did it anyway. A registry would fix that? Oh, wait, he already had to register the restricted weapons in his collection. So there's already a registry, and his firearms were on it, and he still disposed of them illegally? Wow, really? Well, fuck me, a criminal who broke the law. Whatever will they do next?
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I consider my evidence based arguement more persuasive than an opinion based one, but over to you.
What evidence? Please, show me evidence that firearms registries aren't a colossal waste of time and money. You've got Canada and Australia to use as examples, so go and find me the proof.
My "opinion based" argument isn't just grounded in my opinion, but in hard facts. Criminals break the law. Create a new law that's tangentially meant to catch them, and they'll break that one too. Require car registration, and they'll steal cars so that they're not using their own cars to rob banks. Same story with firearms.
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Gun Collectors like this guy Hot Water Beach gun collector John Mabey, 43 have put many lethal weapons into our community and it simply must stop.
umm, yeah. Coz his collection was registered, as required by law. Getting a category 'C' endorsement is pretty tough. Yet again, we have a situation where the existing laws cover the situation, and they didn't work. New laws will fix that? If you truly believe that, I've got a new section of motorway through Waterview to sell you.
Oh, and my mistake, Rich, it actually is a legal requirement to notify the police if a firearm is lost, stolen, or destroyed.
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If you get your guns pinched, you're obliged to immediately report that and the cops will be round. If it turns out you actually sold them then (like people who pretend their partner was driving teh car to get off speeding tickets) you'll be in jail.
You mean like, oh, now? Sure, it's not a legal obligation to report your firearms stolen, but if you want to claim them on insurance you'll certainly do it. Similarly you'll probably want to report it in case they turn up in a crime and the cops do a trace on the serial number to establish when and where it was sold. They'll follow the trail and probably find the purchaser before long. Gun shops are obliged to sight the firearms licence of any purchaser, and they usually keep records so that they can cover their backsides if something untoward happens.
And what's to stop you lying? Fake a burglary, including the forced entry and various other things, and then report it. Suddenly you're off the hook for anything that happens with your erstwhile firearms, and they're in criminal hands. The crims ain't going to be registering them, and probably don't have licences either. So, again, the law-breakers will, shockingly enough, break the law. They won't register the firearms, as required by law, and they'll be in possession of them without a licence, also in contravention of the law.
Whenever someone says that a registry will fix the problem, I think of it as someone saying that there should be laws about illegally interfering with someone's right to life, as well as laws about illegally taking someone's life. It's such a stupid idea, and won't actually do much of anything, but it looks good and sounds good until anyone with an ounce of sense picks the holes.
Laws exist so that people know the boundaries. Once they overstep them, they're breaking the law. Giving them more laws to break won't make them obey the ones they're already breaking. The people who obey the existing laws will, quite probably, obey the new ones too. The ones who don't care will continue to not care.
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If I got a gun license, I could buy guns without anyone knowing what I've bought, right?
You could buy rifles and shotguns, yes. If you wanted to buy hand guns or "military-style semi-automatic" rifles, you need to get extra endorsements on the licence, pay more money, be vetted even more thoroughly, have improved storage, and in the case of hand guns be a member of a registered shooting club. It's not a free-for-all once you've got a firearms licence, and the police do actually take the fit-and-proper person test pretty seriously.
I could then sell them to random crims, swap them for weed, bury them in stashes around the place, etc, and unless I got caught in the act nobody would be the wiser? That doesn't sound sensible to me.
What would a registry achieve? Other than the stashing bit, your other theoretical actions are already illegal (assuming that the "purchaser" doesn't have a firearms licence). It's illegal to be in possession of a firearm without a licence, and the penalty is three months' jail (a little light, but still time inside) and/or a $1k fine. Selling to an unlicensed purchaser is also illegal, and attracts the same penalties. In the case of "restricted" firearms, such as MSSAs or hand guns, the penalty goes up to three years and/or $4k.
Once again, criminals break the law, by definition. The registry will catch law-abiding firearms owners, and do not a bloody thing to deter criminals. You can even get around the restrictions on supply by faking a burglary and then reporting the weapons to the police as having been stolen. Been done before, and recently. Of course the cops caught on and the supplier got done in a big way for supply without permit and supply to unlicensed receivers, but it can be and has been tried in this country in the recent past. A registry wouldn't change that, either.
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What they didn't do was just blaze away when they didn't have a target.
And that seems to be Grant's problem. That they didn't do that was, if I understand him correctly, an unnecessary level of molly-coddling of Molenaar's safety.
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I just want to point out, again, that our current laws in this area are by world standards outstanding, depsite anything Mr Alpers says to the contrary.
Precisely. I'm pretty sure I've seen comments from senior police officers from other countries that amount to "Your laws are sane and workable. How do we convince our elected masters to give us something similar?"
Gun crime involving discharged rounds is very, very unusual in this country. The laws aren't manifestly inadequate. Nobody can point to anything that a law change would've achieved to keep Molenaar from assembling his arsenal, short of random raids of any house to ensure that there are no illegal firearms. Plenty of people knew he had firearms and wasn't licensed, and not one of them told the police. He was already breaking the law, many times over. A new law wouldn't have suddenly made him think "Oh, shit, I'd better surrender my guns," and it wouldn't have suddenly made his collection illegal. It was already illegal!
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And yes I'm talking a total ban in private hands.
Because, like, banning firearms is just so effective at keeping them away from those who would use them with nefarious intent. Like Jan Molenaar, for example, who as the proud holder of a well-expired firearms licence shouldn't have possessed any of the weapons he used against the police.
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O'Connor's busy demonstrating still more blatant disregard for the facts, in this gem.
Police Association president Greg O'Connor told Radio NZ he hoped the Napier shootings would show those opposed to Taser use that police did need more tools at their disposal.
A Taser wouldn't have made the slightest bit of difference, because they would never be used against someone carrying a firearm. In fact, one could interpret that wee flash of genius as a call to purchase some APCs for the cops.
From the same article, though, Key is spouting some sense that will, hopefully, stick:
"I think there is genuine concern about the widespread retainment of arms on an unregistered basis by New Zealanders, but whether it is possible to control that situation is difficult," said Mr Key.
He said most of those with unregistered firearms were in breach of existing laws and it was difficult to see what more could be achieved.