Press release
Through an Official Information Act request, the Sporting Shooters Association of New Zealand says it has uncovered that the police have been “quietly engaged” in a multi-year harassment campaign targeting legal firearm owners following the March 2019 shooting by an Australian terrorist.
For the period of 2020 to 2023 inclusive, there were 3,665 revocations of firearms licences, 3998 licence suspensions result in 2,492 revocations (part of the 3665 figure) and 1,143 licences reinstated. Spokesman and president of SSANZ Thomas Hemphill said the relationship between licence holders and police had fundamentally changed.
“That’s post 2019 and not for the better with a 75.8 percent increase in licences being revoked in the four years after 2019 compared to years 2015 to 2018.”
Licence suspensions have increased by a staggering 14178.6 percent between the two periods. The percentage of suspended licence revocations contributing to overall revocations has grown from 1.5 percent to 67.9 percent of total licence revocations for the 2020-2023 period.
Thomas Hemphill said police are adopting a “guilty until proven innocent” approach to investigating licence holders.
“It can be described as fishing expeditions at the expense of both the taxpayer and innocent law abiding licence holders who foot the legal bill.”
Getting it Wrong
The sheer number of reinstatements shows the police are getting it wrong repeatedly and indicative of firearm licence holders being victims on an institutional bias. Licence holders will then need to find and be able to afford a lawyer, in an emotionally and financially stressful situation.”
Thomas Hemphill said it underscored the importance of moving firearms administration to the Ministry of Justice.
“As an institution the politicised police are not fit and proper to administer the firearm arms system, either directly or by proxy through the Firearms Safety Authority (FSA). SSANZ calls for the handover of this responsibility and the FSA too the Ministry of Justice,” he said.
Contact: Thomas Hemphill <president@sportingshooters.nz>
Phone:-020 414 70732
The question still has not been answered. How did Tarrant get a firearm licence from the police after glaring shortcomings in his application and unusual aspects which should have rung alarm bells? How can anyone have confidence in the police to handle fireaarm administration after that tragic day March 15, 2019?
This just confirms what Firearms Licence Holders already knew. Lawful and legitimate Firearms Licence Holders have been subjected to an insidious campaign of unfair, unreasonable, and unnecessary scapegoating, and what appears to be persecution.
Tarrant’s crime was horrible, tragic and well, EVIL.
It confused and grieved us all because such cruelty is something we cannot possibly understand.
Our shared shock, confusion and grief was exploited by the anti-gun elites of the Labour Party to transfer blame to responsible Licensed Firearm Owners and users, confiscate their personal property and impose draconian regulations to promote further confiscation.
The Royal Commission of Inquiry exonerated all LFOs from any influence or involvement but the damage had already been done.
The death of innocent people was the most tragic consequence of Tarrant’s crime against humanity but the “death” of respect and trust between our police and LFOs was another tragic consequence.
As people so frequently say, “Registration today means Confiscation tomorrow” but only responsible citizens that comply with the punitive regulations will be effected.
No-one has any idea of the number of unlicensed people that have access to firearms or the number of prohibited firearms that are still held by people that did not agree to the confiscation.
No-one will ever know either because firearms are easy to hide and hard to find.
The demands of the anti-gun lobby might be sincere but they are naive and ignorant of factual evidence. They are just another example of “aspiration” overcoming common sense.
All LFOs have (or ought to have) been carefully interviewed and “vetted” to be granted the “privilege” of legal ownership of firearms. They all provided evidence that they had no desire or inclination to harm other people or be harmed by other people.
They all had to prove their innocence in the absence of any evidence of guilt and accept that violation of their legal rights.
Why then are these innocent citizens being targeted with suspicion of criminal intentions by members of our police force?
These unfair and unreasonable regulations are not improving public safety because they are only targeting responsible citizens, that wish to comply with fair and reasonable regulations for their own benefit and that of other people.
The current situation is dire because it has destroyed the mutual respect and trust between LFOs and the police.
If this discriminatory legislation is not repealed and replaced more and more decent citizens will be motivated to NOT COMPLY.
Some firearms will be registered and others will not.
The illegal ones are likely to be illegally on-sold to avoid registration.
They will end up in the wrong hands and without identifying markings.
A firearms license could be viewed as a “target on one’s back’ that is no longer beneficial. This is not desirable.
No-one, especially responsible owners and users of firearms, wants this to happen.
We would all much prefer a system in which people are motivated by respect and trust to comply with a sensible, affordable, fair and reasonable system of preventing the possession of firearms by irresponsible and potentially dangerous people.
We would also like to regard the police as “our friends” and cooperate with them instead of disrespecting and fearing them.
The foolish anti-gun legislation is preventing this cooperation.
I sincerely hope that the people in our new government will have the decency and common sense to repeal Labour’s draconian legislation and replace it with the proposals of Nicole McKee who understand firearms and the people that own and use them safely and responsibly.
Police took my semi auto that I used with my helicopter animal recovery license because they said 100 deer per year was not enough to need one
It would appear that the firearms regulations are going to cause more problems for the police than ever there was prior to Ch Ch.
Thank goodness for Nicole McKee and the ACT party being in government. I wonder where NZ First stand on it and also the Minister of Hunting and Fishing, National’s Todd McClay?
It needs commonsense and fairness. The Jacinda Ardern Labour government just following ideology, aimed to disarm law-abiding citizens of their legitimate firearms. The police under the Ardern regime became politicised.
The hidden long run agenda is to disarm the public