Slimy Anti-Gun Politics - A Waste Of Money:

When our nice young New Zealand Leader Jacinda announced a hurried BAN on semi-auto 'weapons' - very few people would have opposed her move. We all were so horrified and shocked by the vicious murders in Christchurch .. and even those of the 250,000 licensed shooters who lawfully owned semi-autos hesitated to argue against this decisive political move.

This was perceived by the grieving 'kiwis' as 'slamming the door' on such killings. - A simple change to the law supposed to fix a problem for good ..

But then the facts begin to diverge from that emotional FIX.

- The 'Buy-Back' scheme that developed only offers part payment of prohibited item's value.
- Imposed magazine capacity limitations involve also confiscating traditional "cowboy" lever-action guns.
- A Ban or prohibition of many cartridge types,
- Cancelling the whole 'E' category of gun licence,
- Licensed Collectors will have to lock their valuables at their home address .. with action parts now removed to another separately licensed address.
- Licence duration halved to only five years
- Overseas visitors now to be refused firearm licenses
- But NZ Police have issued 639 Firearms Licences to convicted criminals in one decade.
- more shooting related items such as optical sights also now subject to Import Permit.
- All firearms to be REGISTERED individually .. a system previously abandoned by Police as unworkable & inaccurate.

A simple "Semi-Auto Ban" has turned into an extended list of new costly prohibitions, restrictions and impositions on law abiding licence holders - as some sort of reaction to a terrible crime .. which licensed NZ firearms owners did not commit.

Police spokespersons claim that they have no idea how many semi-autos have been imported or where they are .. despite EVERY such IMPORT requiring a police import permit for decades .. That doesn't sound very hopeful for the accuracy of the new register does it?

Plus it hardly needs to be repeated .. but the violent criminals of New Zealand - won't be queuing-up to surrender their guns .. and don't have firearms licences anyway.

Guns had to be registered since the 1860 Arms Act - BUT in 1967 police found that 66% of the register entries were inaccurate and out of date.  Police thought that the register was largely useless. 

- The 1983 Arms Act abandoned registration for most long guns, as Parliament felt it was prohibitively expensive and not particularly useful.

Honest fact-based laws are how every nation should be controlled .. but punitive & useless restrictions based on lies and nonsense will risk non-compliance - while giving the criminal gang members something else to laugh at.

Our modern life increasingly seems to be directed by marketing and 'public relations' techniques - where policies and products are presented in a way to seem attractive to as many folk as possible .. while the bits that don't taste nice or that may hurt you are not mentioned & are kept out of sight until later.
Reading "the small print" has become very important lately - with the cheats and confidence tricksters joining other scammers & thieves circling like sharks around a dying whale. - "The Devil is in the detail."

- Just how we ordinary people can oppose such attacks on our freedoms, rights (& earnings) is hard to say .. but a first move is to group together and organize - as there is always strength in numbers.
Marty K.

https://www.colfo.org.nz/join-colfo/9-latest-news/185-fair-and-reasonable.html