Special report
Finland is opening new shooting ranges in a big way.
According to an article on the TFB blog it’s in response to military unrest in Eastern Europe with the Finns aiming to improve their people’s firearm skills and hoping marksman skills will strengthen their military.
According to the British newspaper The Guardian, Finland currently has 670 shooting ranges with a population of approximately 5.6 million people and comparable to New Zealand.
According to TFB, Finnish politician Jukka Kopra, the chairman of Finland’s defence committee, has said that the federal government wants to bring the number of shooting ranges up to 1,000. The reason is simple – self defence of the country.
The aim is for citizens to develop their own shooting skills and is basing its military defence plans on that idea.
Finland shares an 830-mile border with Russia, and there is a history of armed conflict with neighbours to the east.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has given greater resolve to the policy.
TFB quoted the The Guardian as saying militia-style defence courses have seen interest double since the Ukrainian invasion. In addition there has been a major increase in the number of applications for firearms licences as well.
The increased interest in training means more playing space, hence the plan for more than 300 firing ranges. Environmental restrictions on firing ranges will be relaxed and the target is to have these new ranges operational by 2030.
A very enlightened policy, well done Finland.
If Finland has this policy, what was the last Labour government up to with its firearm “reforms” after the 2019 mosque shootings? What were the opolice heiracy and the Police Union (Cahill) up to?
Labour has still this totally misplaced paranoia about legal firearm ownership as shown by the continuing wild-eyed shrieks from Labour’s Ginny Anderson.
ACT’s Nicole McKee has brought common-sense to the table.
Labour should take strong note of Finland’s case.
Meanwhile New Zealand and Australia continue to make it as difficult as possible for law abiding firearms owners. Take a look at the absurd new regulations in Western Australia a vast and almost empty state which has virtually no firearms crime other than the usual suspects, (feral humans), who don’t obey firearms laws anyway and a huge feral animal problem which will only get worse now. Thank goodness New Zealand has Nicole McKee fighting our corner for us.
Politicians – most of them – seem incapable of lateral vision. They cannot multi-task.
Rifle ranges teach not only skills in marksmanship but also in the ultra-important fields of respect for firearms and firearm safety.
Introducing youngsters to firearms and instilling that respoect and safety discipline is invaluable. If it leads beyond the shooting range to going hunting and being in the hills that has to be good for the youngster.
I’ll almost bet my last dollar that any teenager who has been taught firearm disciplines and goes hunting in the outdoors will not become a crime statistic.
Developing the skills of safe firearm use allied with marksmanship ability requires self-discipline and hands-on practical training, for which small arms ranges (and instructors) are needed.
Too bad this requirement was dropped when the old Local Government Act (1974) was subsumed by the Resource Management Act (1989)!
This measure should be brought back under the new reforms.
I understand that one of the reasons that the US refused to put grounds troops into Serbia etc during their civil war was that an estimated 2 million men had AK47s and the US General foresaw an AK behind every rock and around every corner. Seems like it would be a simple and cheap defence policy for NZ as well – encourage shooting sports as a means of training a huge body of men to be both useful and lethal. Oh, now that I think about it, that is exactly why the Politicians wouldn’t want to make that policy…
Why would we want firearms competency amongst civilians?:
“One quote made my mouth dry, throat tickle and eyes glisten. The Egyptian curators had singled out one country for special mention.
“The New Zealanders were first class infantry who gained an enviable reputation for their fighting qualities.”
Africa Korps papers captured after their final defeat included a document Rommel issued to his senior officers on the relative merits of Allied troops in North Africa – he placed New Zealanders at the top of his list. Rommel’s description of them could have been written with Charles Upham in mind:
“They were quiet men, not given to boasting, and possessing a firmness of spirit that came from thoroughly digested experience. Perhaps, someday, someone will write this divisions history. It ought to be the best reading of the war.”
Unwittingly, Montgomery agreed with his old foe. In his foreword to Freyburg’s reports on the Battle of El Alamein, known as the Blue Books because of the colour of their covers, Monty wrote in December 1942:
“The Battle of Egypt was won by the good fighting qualities of the soldiers of the Empire. Of all the soldiers none were finer than the fighting men from New Zealand. The Division was splendidly led and fought magnificently; the full story of its achievement will make men and women in the home country thrill with pride.
The legendary Australian war correspondent Alan Moorehead was equally generous when writing about the New Zealand Division in African Trilogy: “By common consent they were regarded as The finest infantry formation in the Middle East”, and in The End In Africa he waxed lyrical about an encounter on a desert road:
“We hit the New Zealand Division coming head on towards us in the way the enemy would see it coming. They rolled by with their tanks and their guns and armoured cars, the finest troops of their kind in the world, the outflanking experts, the men who had fought the Germans in the desert for two years, the victors of half a dozen pitched battles. They were too gaunt and lean to be handsome, too hard and sinewy to be graceful, too youthful and physical to be complete. But if you ever wish to see the most resilient and practiced fighter of the Anglo-Saxon armies this was he”.
The most purple prose was penned by a New Zealander, Lieutenant Colonel John Mulligan MC, who served with the British forces as second in command of an English infantry Regiment. In his book Report On Experience, he describes coming across his fellow countrymen in the Western Desert in 1942:
“They were mature men, these New Zealanders of the desert, quiet and shrewd and sceptical. They had confidence in themselves, such as New Zealanders rarely have. It seemed to me, meeting them again, friends grown a little older, more self-assured, hearing again these soft, inflicted voices, the repetitions of slow, drawling slang, that perhaps to have produced these men for this time would be New Zealand’s destiny. Everything that was good from that small, remote country had gone into them – sunshine and strength, good sense, patience, the versatility of practical men. And they marched into history.”
These eulogies and accolades came at a huge cost. At the close of hostilities in North Africa, the total casualties (killed and wounded) suffered by the Second New Zealand Division amounted to 19,000 men out of the 43,500 dispatched to the Middle East. That is almost one in two. “
When governments make it hard to own guns, they’re planning on doing things that will get them shot. So well done Finland, also keeps their politicians well-behaved.
One reason why America doesn’t fear a land invasion it has the biggest well armed private army in the world.