Submission to the Law and Order Select Committee. Regarding Illegal Firearms Possession Within. New Zealand

Transcription

1 Submission to the Law and Order Select Committee Regarding Illegal Firearms Possession Within New Zealand By Brad M About the Author: I am a licensed firearms owner, and hold an E endorsement. I have held a firearms license for over a decade and have grown up around firearms in the rural farming sector. I am currently a member of the New Zealand Deer Stalkers Association, Council of Licensed Firearm Owners, New Zealand Service Rifle Association and Pistol NZ. I am an active member of a pistol club, committee member and chief range officer of a service rifle club, as well as a hunter and outdoorsman. Introduction In recent months, there has been extensive media coverage of events and incidents involving illegal firearms in this country. I have carefully observed the comments and suggestions of groups such as Police, The Police Association and News Media outlets. Their appears to be some concern growing about the perceived threat to police officers and public safety, as well as many suggestions as to how the situation could be fixed. I feel that some of these ideas are misguided and lack in logical analysis of cause and effect. I will outline my concerns throughout my submission. How Do Criminals Come Into Possession of Firearms? In New Zealand, a firearms license is required to legally take possession of and store a firearm. There are two main factors that govern whether a person will be issued a license. One is that they are deemed fit and proper and the other is that they have in place sufficient security at their residential address pursuant to the license and endorsements they are issued. Criminals, gang members, and the mentally unstable are by definition not fit and proper to hold a firearms license. So how do they get firearms? Legally With a Firearms license. I note there have been occasions where gang members and their close associates have been granted a firearms license, which has allowed them to purchase and pass on firearms from the legal market to the criminal underground. A recent example of this is the report in The Herald of a patched gang member in Northland who was able to obtain a firearms license, and buy a number of firearms before making them disappear upon having his license revoked. For me this raises several questions:

2 How robust is the criminal back ground check system used by police, for the vetting of a firearms license applicant? Are people being issued a firearms license with the knowledge that they have friends or family involved in organised crime? What checks are done on the referees of a firearms license applicant, to ensure that they are of good standing in society, and not likely to lie to allow their associate to procure firearms? Are these checks robust? Are the amount of firearms license applications putting a strain on the vetting staff, and affecting the quality of the vetting being done? Further to this, is there a need to allocate more staff and resources to licensing and vetting? Illegally Straw Purchases There have been instances of collectors and licensed owners being turned by organised criminals, to sell them firearms. In some cases these have been firearms which require a special firearms license endorsement. These firearms are required to be registered to the owner, making it easy for police to track them back to their source. However when large amounts of money are involved this does not seem to dissuade these individuals. The case involving gun collector John Mabey is a prime example of this, selling 121 of his registered C category firearms to gang members. I believe to combat these cases, our criminal laws need to be adjusted to represent the seriousness of this nature of offending. This type of activity undermines New Zealand s entire arms control regime and makes a mockery of the Police and legitimate gun owners. Penalties should be well communicated to all gun owners and so severe as to discourage straw purchasing. In my opinion anybody who conspires to sell firearms to organised criminal groups should be charged as an accomplice in any crimes committed with those firearms. This should not in any way detract from the fact that the majority of licensed gun owners are upstanding individuals who would hate to think of their firearms falling into criminal hands. No human entity is immune from transgressors and thankfully this is a minority. Residential Burglary and Theft Through an official information act enquiry, it was revealed that police believe the majority of illegal firearms are obtained through theft from licensed owners. I cannot think of any conditions which could be further imposed on licensed firearms owners to prevent this from happening. The argument could be made that the security required for A category firearms is too relaxed and a better standard needs to be set

3 in the law. However I will point out that Category B,C and E security measures, significantly more substantial than A, are regularly defeated by determined thieves. There have been two recent cases in my district where determined burglars have broken their way into E category safes. I believe that more emphasis should be given to burglary resolution. The current resolution rates published in the media is unacceptable in my opinion. Burglaries involving firearms should be prioritized above all else. Police should be given the resources to focus their attention on the matter. Whilst I am far from an expert in law enforcement matters, I put it to the committee to consider the idea of setting up a dedicated police task force who s purpose is to aggressively investigate burglaries involving firearms, identify those involved In the illegal firearm market and shut them down, but above all else recover stolen and illegal firearms. If the Government is truly serious about tackling the issue of illegal firearms possession, investment of resources into this area would be the wisest move. Illegal Importation Information available to the public in this area is sparse and I am unable to give an informed opinion on the matter. I have quite extensive experience importing firearms and parts there of legitimately and found Customs Service to be generally diligent and professional. I do however have no doubt that illicit firearms and parts are smuggled in, disguised in machinery and parts for vehicles perhaps, though I don t believe that this is a major source for the local firearms black market. Thoughts Regarding Proposals To Curb Illegal Firearm Ownership Every time an incident happens involving firearms I see similar commentary from news media outlets, their writers, editors and people approached for comment. I will address some ideas I frequently see tabled. Universal Gun Registration This idea appears to be a popular one among many critics of our firearm control laws. Currently the only firearms which are registered are ones that fall under the B,C and E categories. A category firearms have not been registered since the introduction of the 1983 arms act. Universal registration was abolished due to the laborious and erroneous record keeping, but the main reason was because it was found that it did not prevent crime and was not particularly useful at solving crime. Granted that technology available today would make it an easier system to administer, but there are several key points as to why it shouldn t be considered.

4 It would be incredibly costly to implement first in the actual implementation of a secure recording system as well as required man hours for data collection and entry, on an already stretched and under resourced firearms department. Canada as an example abandoned universal registration following a scandalous and gigantic budget blow out that developed over two decades. It would be of a limited deterrent to criminals and rogue license holders as mentioned earlier, if certain license holders are willing to sell firearms that are currently required to be registered, I don t believe it would be a viable deterrent when applied across a wider section of the licensed community. A key point made is that police don t know where guns are The only thing that registration will achieve in this respect, is to let them know where all of the legally owned firearms are. Criminals will not register their guns. Registered guns that are stolen and unrecovered are virtually gone from the register. If they are cut down and the markings ground off, they will become all but untraceable. Police will never know where illegal guns are, even if all legal ones are registered. This is the biggest red herring with gun registration. Australia has mandatory gun registration across the board, and yet they have a serious problem with criminal gangs obtaining illegal and unregistered firearms. The Australian Crime Commission estimates there are approximately 260,000 illegal firearms in circulation in Australia, despite their very strict firearm control laws. Gun Bans/Buy Backs A favourite idea expressed in the news media, is the banning of certain types of firearms. Military Style Semi Automatic rifles and shotguns, and of late, all semi automatic firearms appear to be low hanging fruit in this regard. I can only hazard a guess that due to a lack of imagination, certain individuals appear to copy ideas of anti-gun lobby groups. The truth is that as technology has progressed, these firearms have become main stream among both hunters and target shooters. A ban on semi automatic firearms would only affect licensed gun owners who use them for their day to day activities. Such a ban would have little impact on criminals and crime in general. It is very rare for a criminal to use a semi automatic rifle in the commission of a crime. Police data released to The Herald shows that the majority of firearms seized are shotguns, many of which are pump action, and break action/single barrel/double barrel, and many of which are cut down into crude illegal pistols Street criminals prefer small, concealable firearms. Semi automatic rifles and shotguns, with the exception of.22 rim fire rifles, do not respond well to being drastically shortened. Sawing down the barrel of a semi automatic rifle for example can result in insufficient power to cycle the working mechanism, effectively turning it into an unreliable single shot rifle/pistol.

5 To mention Australia once more, they virtually banned semi automatic rifles and shotguns in 1996, requiring them to be handed in for destruction, as well as implementing universal firearm registration. And yet as mentioned before they still have a serious issue with illegal firearm ownership and criminal misuse. Final Thoughts To summarize my Submission: I would like an investigation into the quality of firearms license vetting, for both the applicant and their referees supplied, to ensure the system is robust. I would like to see straw purchasing punished severely by our judiciary long prison sentences for offenders, additional charges if any of their illegally supplied firearms are used in the commission of any crime. This cannot be allowed to be an offence that is worth doing. Police need to be given the resources and the directive to aggressively follow up firearm burglaries, recover firearms and shut down or lock up those involved in the illegal trade. The idea of universal gun registration as well as gun bans need to be totally discounted as ineffectual to the prevalence of illegal firearms within New Zealand. Such measures will only affect honest licensed gun owners, while criminals will continue to steal to get the bulk of their firearms. The resources saved should be allocated to police so they can work to reduce the current pool of illegal firearms and improve burglary resolution rates. I hope my submission to the committee provides some degree of useful insight from somebody who is well invested in the safe, healthy gun culture of New Zealand. Good luck with the enquiry and I look forward to reading the findings. Regards, Brad.