Noncompliance Kneecaps New Zealand's Gun Control Scheme

[seer]

that really depends on exactly how annoying your neighbours are....

A tactical nuke might work...

[Raphael]

For the record.
I have been hijacked at gunpoint. The situation was such that if I had a gun and had tried to use it, my best mate who was in the car with me would have shot. When the hijackers searched me, had they found a gun, it would have been stolen and I would have been forced into my parent house (I was hijacked outside their house) at gunpoint for them to search for more guns.
My father-in-law has been involved in a shoot out.
My brother has been involved in a shoot out.
I have had friends (and family friends) who have been beaten and tortured in order to get access to the gun safe. I've had family friends beaten and tortured because they didn't own guns (devout Seventh Day Adventists)
I have an elderly family friend whose hand were smashed (i.e severely broken) because he shot at the thieves breaking in.
And I haven't even started on those who have been murdered yet......

Owning a gun doesn't automatically make you safer. Sometimes it makes you more of a target.

(That being said, I still think our new gun laws are knee jerk, badly thought out reactions by the bunch of useless incompetents we currently have in parliament)

[Sparko]

Exactly. There is no good argument for private ownership of nuclear weapons even if you interpret the 2nd Amendment as broadly as possible.

Now hand grenades are a different story.

[Sparko]

For the record.
I have been hijacked at gunpoint. The situation was such that if I had a gun and had tried to use it, my best mate who was in the car with me would have shot. When the hijackers searched me, had they found a gun, it would have been stolen and I would have been forced into my parent house (I was hijacked outside their house) at gunpoint for them to search for more guns.
My father-in-law has been involved in a shoot out.
My brother has been involved in a shoot out.
I have had friends (and family friends) who have been beaten and tortured in order to get access to the gun safe. I've had family friends beaten and tortured because they didn't own guns (devout Seventh Day Adventists)
I have an elderly family friend whose hand were smashed (i.e severely broken) because he shot at the thieves breaking in.
And I haven't even started on those who have been murdered yet......

Owning a gun doesn't automatically make you safer. Sometimes it makes you more of a target.

(That being said, I still think our new gun laws are knee jerk, badly thought out reactions by the bunch of useless incompetents we currently have in parliament)

Yeah no situation is the same, and I personally don't carry a gun in public even though I have a permit (unless I am going into a dangerous area). I keep mine at home in my bedroom. If someone breaks in, I would grab that gun and be ready to defend myself. The situation might turn against me if they had the drop on me or if I hesitated, but odds are, I would be in the better position than if I didn't have a gun.

[rogue06]

Violent crime rates in Europe remain much much lower than in the US, while gun crime is hardly comparable. While a small number of criminals use guns, law enforcement tends to take a very dim view, and deals with it without prejudice but with the full arm of the law. Officers in Europe are armed.



Where's the list of mass killings that involved firearms?

Your list contains a large number of entries that involved sophisticated terror networks, that use sophisticated bomb makers. These aren't the run of the mill school shooter or lone wolf terrorist like Christchurch and Norway. Which tend to prefer guns, guns that kill a lot of people.

In terms of overall gun deaths per unit of population, the US is in a scary state, it's 20 times higher than in most European countries and higher than Iraq. The only countries that are substantially higher are countries in central America - countries people are fleeing.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsan...t-of-the-world

It seems that if you have an argument, or a crime, that involves guns, it tends to result in worse outcome for people involved than if guns aren't involved.

Dirty little secret here... most of those "sophisticated bomb makers" make things that any kid taking chemistry or a shop class could whip up. Shoddy hardly describes how poorly constructed many of these things are. There is a reason that a substantial number of these bomb makers (and those placing the bombs they make) end up blowing themselves up.

Now.. as to "Where's the list of mass killings that involved firearms?" For some reason you decided to ignore this part of my post:

Almost all of the worst massacres involving firearms were done by paramilitary groups conducting raids on villages and camps -- things no form of gun control could prevent.

Finally, it does not take a "sophisticated terror network" to rent a van or a lorry (truck with a flat front-end) and use it to plow through a crowd of pedestrians. All you need is one evil $#%@# with a bit of determination.

[rogue06]

that really depends on exactly how annoying your neighbours are....

And how close they are.

[Starlight]

The OP article is pure speculation. "Fake news".

The NZ government buyback scheme runs until September / October. Only some types of guns are being banned/bought-back (mostly types of semi-automatics), with other types of guns remaining legal. The government doesn't keep a gun registry so it doesn't know how many of these particular type of guns are out there. So even after the buyback scheme ends in October nobody will know what proportion of people owning these guns have kept them rather than handing them in. Any statements about whether compliance with the law has been 'high' or 'low' will be pure speculation even at that point.

It is remarkable how willing conservatives on this site seem to be to believe that gun owners won't obey this law. What happened to "responsible law-abiding gun owners"? Guess you guys actually think gun owners are criminal scum?

Even if some proportion of gun owners don't comply with the law, the law will still serve its primary purpose of reducing the general availability of massacre-relevant-guns to future massacre-aspiring people. The Christchurch shooter bought his semi-automatic guns from a local store. Now, that can't be done anymore. Someone in his position would still be able to buy guns, but not ones that could kill so many people so easily.

Also worth noting that owning a gun for self-defense purposes isn't legal in NZ, guns have to be owned for hunting or farming purposes etc, and have to be locked away and the ammo stored separately. NZ doesn't have a culture of guns for self-defense.

[Starlight]

For the record.
I have been hijacked at gunpoint. The situation was such that if I had a gun and had tried to use it, my best mate who was in the car with me would have shot. When the hijackers searched me, had they found a gun, it would have been stolen and I would have been forced into my parent house (I was hijacked outside their house) at gunpoint for them to search for more guns.
My father-in-law has been involved in a shoot out.
My brother has been involved in a shoot out.
I have had friends (and family friends) who have been beaten and tortured in order to get access to the gun safe. I've had family friends beaten and tortured because they didn't own guns (devout Seventh Day Adventists)
I have an elderly family friend whose hand were smashed (i.e severely broken) because he shot at the thieves breaking in.
And I haven't even started on those who have been murdered yet......

I assume all of this happened in South Africa, and none of it in New Zealand?

The huge difference in crime rates and gun-use-during-crime rates make comparing the two countries like apples and oranges. But interesting to hear your view that this still applies even in high-crime high-gun-crime countries like SA:

Owning a gun doesn't automatically make you safer. Sometimes it makes you more of a target.

Quite a lot of US studies I've seen found gun ownership in the US makes you and your family less safe. The chances of an accident, suicide with it, a criminal grabbing it off you, or a criminal responding to seeing it by shooting you, are greater than the chances of successfully using it to defend your life or that of your family.

(That being said, I still think our new gun laws are knee jerk, badly thought out reactions by the bunch of useless incompetents we currently have in parliament)

Like Judith Collins?

[rogue06]

The OP article is pure speculation. "Fake news".

The NZ government buyback scheme runs until September / October. Only some types of guns are being banned/bought-back (mostly types of semi-automatics), with other types of guns remaining legal. The government doesn't keep a gun registry so it doesn't know how many of these particular type of guns are out there. So even after the buyback scheme ends in October nobody will know what proportion of people owning these guns have kept them rather than handing them in. Any statements about whether compliance with the law has been 'high' or 'low' will be pure speculation even at that point.

It is remarkable how willing conservatives on this site seem to be to believe that gun owners won't obey this law. What happened to "responsible law-abiding gun owners"? Guess you guys actually think gun owners are criminal scum?

Even if some proportion of gun owners don't comply with the law, the law will still serve its primary purpose of reducing the general availability of massacre-relevant-guns to future massacre-aspiring people. The Christchurch shooter bought his semi-automatic guns from a local store. Now, that can't be done anymore. Someone in his position would still be able to buy guns, but not ones that could kill so many people so easily.

Also worth noting that owning a gun for self-defense purposes isn't legal in NZ, guns have to be owned for hunting or farming purposes etc, and have to be locked away and the ammo stored separately. NZ doesn't have a culture of guns for self-defense.

Yeah, I'm sure the 700 firearms turned in represents a sizable percentage of those in private hands.

[Raphael]

I assume all of this happened in South Africa, and none of it in New Zealand?

Yes. But my post was not about the NZ situation, but that owning a gun doesn't automatically make things safer.
I can also tell tales where having a gun saved a life. Like when my mom had her .38 special on her protecting her from being attacked.

The huge difference in crime rates and gun-use-during-crime rates make comparing the two countries like apples and oranges. But interesting to hear your view that this still applies even in high-crime high-gun-crime countries like SA:
Quite a lot of US studies I've seen found gun ownership in the US makes you and your family less safe. The chances of an accident, suicide with it, a criminal grabbing it off you, or a criminal responding to seeing it by shooting you, are greater than the chances of successfully using it to defend your life or that of your family.

The counter to that is that gun crime is demonstratively worse in those cities and states in the US where gun laws are very restrictive.
The situation in South Africa is the result ofa couple of generations of people believing that anarchy and violence are the way to get what you want. And is not helped by politicians openly calling for the murder of farmers.

Like Judith Collins?

Unlike the left, I do actually criticize politicians on the right when I think they were wrong.
Judith is wrong on this issue.
She is also wrong on the euthanasia issue.

But the law was still crafted by the idiots from the Greens and Labour and the traitors in WinstonFirst.

[Starlight]

Yeah, I'm sure the 700 firearms turned in represents a sizable percentage of those in private hands.

You're such a sucker for fake news.

The first gun-buyback event is tomorrow.

Maybe at least wait until the gun-buyback actually starts before claiming it's failed? Even better, wait until its finished.

[Starlight]

But the law was still crafted by the idiots from the Greens and Labour and the traitors in WinstonFirst.

You're kind of glossing over the fact that 100% of the idiots in National voted for the bill too. If they disapproved strongly, they could have voted against it, like ACT did. It passed with 99% of politicians voting for it. Can't blame that on leftist idiots.

[rogue06]

You're such a sucker for fake news.

The first gun-buyback event is tomorrow.

Maybe at least wait until the gun-buyback actually starts before claiming it's failed? Even better, wait until its finished.

According to Radio New Zealand, a Crown entity so they're pretty much an official source, the buyback program began right after the law was enacted back in March and as of July 4 a whole 1000 firearms have been turned in of the estimated 1.2 to 1.5 million guns in private hands.

It looks like their buyback has been as big a failure as the ones that have taken place here in the U.S.

[Raphael]

You're kind of glossing over the fact that 100% of the idiots in National voted for the bill too. If they disapproved strongly, they could have voted against it, like ACT did. It passed with 99% of politicians voting for it. Can't blame that on leftist idiots.

You're doing that thing again where you assume that because I am on the right politically (I actually sit pretty dead center on most "where are you politically" type polls) I have to agree with everything the major political party on the right does.

I think National was wrong to vote in favour on it. It is one of the few things I actually agree with ACT on.

It still doesn't change the fact that the the law was hastily and badly crafted by the Greens, Labour and NZF.

It is one of the reasons I am seriously considering giving my party vote to the New Conservative Party if they start polling high enough to have a chance of getting in.

[Cow Poke]

You're such a sucker for fake news.

Hey, welcome back!