50,000 Legal Firearms Confiscated in New Zealand ‘Buyback’
Breitbart London
[The following piece gives us insight on how other countries view the "Great Buyback". We confidently predict that it will have zero impact upon violent crime in New Zealand. We expect that the criminal gangs, which have grown prodigiously in significant numbers of patched members over the past two years, will continue their mayhem. The police will not be safer; nor will the general public. Ed.]
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) – New Zealand authorities said Saturday their country will be a safer place after owners handed in more than 50,000 guns during a buyback program following a ban on assault weapons. But critics say the process was flawed and many owners have illegally stashed their firearms.
The government banned many types of semi-automatic weapons less than a month after a lone gunman in March killed 51 worshippers at two Christchurch mosques. The police then launched a six-month program to buy the newly banned weapons from owners.
The buyback ended midnight Friday, with gun collection events staying open late as police reported in a surge in last-minute returns. Provisional figures indicate 33,000 people handed in 51,000 guns, and another 5,000 guns as part of a parallel amnesty in which owners could hand over any type of firearm without any questions being asked but without getting compensated.
Owners also modified another 2,700 guns to make them legally compliant, while police said they had seized a further 1,800 guns from gangs since March. And police said they’re in the process of collecting another 1,600 guns from gun dealers.
Police Minister Stuart Nash told reporters Saturday that criminals would find it harder to get their hands on assault weapons because they tended to steal them from lawful owners, but those weapons would now be out of circulation.
Police Deputy Commissioner Mike Clement thanked gun owners for doing the right thing. He acknowledged in a statement it had been “a difficult process for some people.” Both Nash and Clement said the country was now safer than it had been before the March attacks.
But Nicole McKee, a spokeswoman for the advocacy group Council of Licensed Firearms Owners, said owners had kept about two-thirds of the banned weapons because they had lost faith in the government and hadn’t been offered adequate compensation. “They never overcame being blamed by authorities for being somehow responsible for a heinous act of terrorism – something they would never do,” McKee said in a statement.
The ban on assault weapons was strongly backed by lawmakers in a historic 119-1 vote after the mosque attacks. Lawmakers are now considering further restrictions, including creating a register to track all guns. Police figures indicate the government paid out just over 100 million New Zealand dollars ($66 million) to compensate owners during the buyback.
1 comment:
"Police Minister Stuart Nash told reporters Saturday that criminals would find it harder to get their hands on assault weapons because they tended to steal them from lawful owners, but those weapons would now be out of circulation."
Crims seldom get guns from law abiding gun owners who have them locked in bolted down safes (as required by law)
Now that possessing these firearms is an offence, the gun owner who didn't want to hand in his gun must "hide" it somewhere else other then in their protected gun safe because if police come to check his safe (when they bring in the new laws yet to be determined) he will be prosecuted. These are just the facts not a defence of the newly made criminal for owning his own gun he bought legally.
Crims also know this and will be out looking for these guns (in the usual limited hiding places, under mattresses, ceilings, cupboards, and garages) during their burglary shopping sprees.
We wont know these figures because of course the gun owners won't be able to admit their gun was stolen (which they weren't supposed to have) during a robbery. These stolen guns (that now don't exist) will enter the underworld but police will say "we are safer for it".
Eventually some of these guns will likely be sold, but only to those with cash and who wont tell police. That means the guns will likely find criminal hands with available cash and no tell!
So we have powerful semi automatic firearms that represented the smallest percentage of guns used in burglaries, armed disputes, suicides and robberies and were previously held in secure safes but now kept in unsafe places which will likely make their way into the wrong hands.
The most important question not being debated and fixed is HOW DID THIS AUSTRALIAN MALE WHO HAD BEEN TO MANY SUSPECT COUNTRIES WHERE HE WAS RADICALISED NOT RAISE SERIOUS RED FLAGS AND CONCERNS TO THOSE GOVERMENT AGENCIES TASKED TO PROTECT US?
If we had a half descent media we would have answers from our elected Government officials about this.
We don't so can expect it can happen again. Only this time they will use Ten shot 22's and 1080 in local water supplies or a truck load of readily available fertiliser.
But who is surprised when Government bureaucracy is involved?
Reagan was right. The 12 most frightening words to a law abiding citizen are...
"We are from the Government and we are here to help you"
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