New Zealand PM: Make Gun Ownership a Privilege, Require Gun Registry

New Zealand Gun Control
New Zealand Gun Control

U.S.A.-(Ammoland.com)- New Zealand’s Prime Minister has proposed extreme new controls on gun ownership for the country. They are explicitly designed to move gun ownership in New Zealand from a right to a privilege. The Prime Minister is attempting to follow the Australian playbook on imposing extreme restrictions on gun ownership. From stuff.co.nz:

Firearm owners will have to register their guns amid the largest changes to gun laws in decades.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced details of the firearm law overhaul on Monday, saying it would come with a message ingrained in law: firearm ownership is a privilege and not a right.

Ardern said New Zealand had reached a “new normal around firearms” after the March 15 terror attack.

The Government is seeking cross-party support the latest reform effort, but already resistance to the a firearm register – a contentious measure linking gun serial numbers to licence holders – is fomenting.

In a statement that strains credulity, the P.M. claimed the piecemeal implementation of the extreme measures was a deliberate strategy, rather than a lame attempt to add restrictions as the unworkabiliy of the ban became obvious.

On Monday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the Government wanted to make sure it got the buyback fully bedded in and the collection regime under way before announcing a second tranche of gun laws.

Nik Green, the disarmament advocate who was instrumental in pushing for restrictions on gun owners,  called for a further restrictions and a complete gun registry months after the initial legislation, when resistance to the extreme and rushed legislation started to surface.

Green called for registration of all firearms and reducing the terms of a firearms license. The group he founded said they had no problem with people owning firearms as long as they were not semi-automatic. From scoop.co.nz:

“Hunting and other shooting sports have a long history in New Zealand. We support properly vetted people being able to own registered rifles and shotguns, so long as those guns are not semi-automatic,” says co-founder Philippa Yasbek.

Then, when gun owners made preparations to convert semi-automatics to manually operated repeaters, Green opposed that as insufficient.

What has happened in New Zealand seems clear to those who have studied the push for disarming populations. A mass murder with firearms was perpetrated, promoted by media contagion and/or in response to governmental policies. In New Zealand, it was an act of political terrorism.

The government in power, rather than seeking wise and rational lessons from the incident, leading to deliberation with a normal legislative process, uses the event to push for a pet policy of disarming the population.

In Australia, a plan was in place, and legislation had been prepared to take maximum advantage of the media push and emotional momentum, before logic, reason, and counter-arguments could be marshaled against the emotional momentum.

An interview with Peter Collins, who was the leader of the opposition coalition of Liberals and Nationalists in New South Wales, when the 1997 Australian legislation was passed, confirmed this scenario.  Just nine years previously, the liberals wondered why Labor would push for restrictions on gun ownership. It was a clear, losing proposition. Then the Port Arthur massacre was committed.

Former Member of Parliament in Australia, Peter Collins, said that made all the difference.  None of the politicians in power saw a downside. Prime Minister John Howard saw this as the opportunity to change the culture of Australia. They had to act fast, before the opportunity was lost.

The big effort was to get it passed while emotions were high, “to cover as much as possible, with this legislation, realizing the momentum would never be greater”.

The most important change, he said, was to move from the expectation an Australian had a right to a gun, to the presumption they did not.

The expectation of a right to arms was founded in the rights of Englishmen in their common law. It is what the United States Second Amendment was based on.

In Australia, no opposition was allowed in the media, not by government decree, but by concensus of the media conglomerates.

In New Zealand, there is an official government censor that works hard to prevent New Zealanders from knowing that the environmental leftist who committed the murders planned for his act to spark more gun control laws in New Zealand and in the United States. He chose to use semi-automatic rifles precisely for that reason.

His manifesto has been banned in New Zealand. John Lott, a prestigious American academic who has been critical of restrictive gun control schemes, was banned from twitter when he referenced that fact.

In New Zealand, the socialist Prime Minister rushed to push legislation through, but it was not as sweeping as the Australian ban. New Zealand has at least twice as many gun owners per capita as Australia. The legislation did not explicitly eliminate the right to have a gun, as the Australian legislation did. It did not require registration of all guns. It did not ban slingshots and crossbows and place airguns in the same category as shotguns.

Now, the New Zealand government has discovered that mass confiscation requires a registration list. The P.M. wants registration of all guns, a shortened registration period, and the explicit pronouncement that gun ownership is not a right, but a privilege that can be revoked by the government at any time, are proposed. She wants to ban hunters from bring their own guns to Australia, although hunters bringing guns has not been involved in any incidents. Banning hunters from bringing guns is a clear push to punish the gun culture, rather than to prevent terrorism. It is an economic blow to New Zealand’s hunting industry. It is hard to make a case that banning hunting guns stops terrorism.

These extreme restrictions would probably have passed in the emotional media push right after the terrorist attack. They passed in Australia. They may still pass.

None of the new restrictions have been submitted as actual legislation. Very likely, the Prime Minister is gauging the opposition, trying to determine how many more restrictions she can push through.

The new restrictions will be subject to a bit more discussion, debate, and rational deliberation. Some of New Zealand media are allowing some opposition voices to be heard.

Official censorship continues, however. It seems unlikely most New Zealand citizens know their government is acting exactly as the terrorist planned for it to act.


About Dean Weingarten:Dean Weingarten

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.

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tomcat

It would be great if each of us were as intelligent as politicians think they are. I listened to the democratic debates because I thought it would be entertaining to hear them tear each other apart, and it was. What I came away with was that each of them think they are smarter than us and we need them to design a life for us. They are going to fix the whole world and the free stuff just rolls off their tongue. No matter how much they brag about what they can do, it ain’t gonna happen because they will… Read more »

Jeff

I hope Americans realize we are unique in the world because our nation was founding on the principles of natural rights. These rights come from our creator, or from being human beings. They are not bestowed by the government but God-given.

option31

This ownership of humans is a World wide problem. These politicians are slowly but surely showing they think we are their property to do with and decide for what they want. Its time to make them defend that position. Any conversation should not be allowed to move forward until they answer why they think they own us.

Laddyboy

I am an American. I trust in God! I do not TRUST the government to do anything that it says it will do – – until I SEE and EVALUATE the results. There is a saying that all FREE THINKING People MUST remember. These are the MOST DANGEROUS WORDS YOU will ever hear from government; “HI, I am from the government and I am here to help you.” I see the COMMUNISTS around the world, in other governments, are using Australian ANTI-FREEDOM SEDITIONIST tactics are hard at work across the world in many countries in trying to REMOVE the RIGHTS… Read more »

fullmentaljacket

Canada’s gun owners are going through the same problems and unwarranted demonization right now, because a bunch of voters decided they wanted to buy and possess marijuana without criminalization back in 2015. They gave our wonderful radical left wing Liberals a majority, and under the same rules of the British parliamentary style of government that Australia and New Zealand use, we could wind up with our firearms taken away, or thinned out to the point where overthrowing an overreaching totalitarian regime could become much more difficult. They voted the socialist/communist principled leftists in, and gave them the keys to the… Read more »

ras52

The media in New Zealand evidently is as corrupt and devious as the media in the USA. Gun owners in New Zealand: Stand strong together. Don’t give up.

Gene Ralno

Every ship’s captain and business school grad knows the immutable truth that authority cannot exist without subordinate acceptance. Seems Ardern was neither and as a consequence, she’s learning her lesson the hard way. Recent numbers reveal that about 80 percent of American and Australian owners directly defied new laws and didn’t surrender their arms. Kiwis on the other hand have reset the standard for resisting oppressive government. Last I heard, 99.97 percent of them have not handed them over yet and there seems to be no indication that even one more firearm will be forthcoming. Kiwi officials complained that the… Read more »

Wild Bill

@Roy, Your first three and a half paragraphs seem to point to the consent of the governed. The last two and a half seem to point to whomever kills the biggest gets to be the government.

fullmentaljacket

Your last paragraph said it all for me. The problem is finding enough like-minded, educated, people who understand the danger of so easily handing over their basic human right to life, and to use whatever means is available to achieve that level of survival in today’s world. Firearms ownership should always be an irrevocable right, not a privilege, as the leftists would have the proletariat believe. Only the USA entrenched that right in it’s constitution and psyche, and that’s what has made them great. Anyone who thinks the police will come to their house, and stand guard over them their… Read more »

Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez

I am informed that my Uberti replica 1860 Henry Iron Frame rifle in .45 Colt is required to be surrendered to the New Zealand Government’s “buy back” as the magazine is capable of being loaded with more than 10 rounds, although this is contrary to the manufacturer’s instructions. “The Crown” will reimburse me to the tune of NZD400.00 if I’m lucky, for a rifle with a free market value in the region of NZD2,500.00. If I can find a gunsmith to shorten the barrel and magazine length I may be able to save my Uberti Henry.This will be an expensive… Read more »

Stripeseven

Serve the people, not rule over them. Sounds like another Tyrant wanna-be…

MB

What American politicians and apparently New Zealand politicians have forgotten is that the people (citizens) created the government and can remove it anytime if pushed too far. taking away guns will not insure that does not happen, and long as the people have rope, axes and pitchforks, potassium nitrate, sulfur and charcoal. Just ask Louis XVI and Mussolini.

moe mensale

You’re conflating apples and oranges. The US was formed by the British colonies breaking away from their mother country, England, and creating their own government. New Zealand, on the other hand, was formed by England claiming sovereignty over the indigenous Maori people. England created the government, not the people who later migrated there. New Zealand, now fully independent, still has the English queen as its monarch. Its constitution has no codified right to firearms ownership, unlike the US constitution. That doesn’t prevent the New Zealanders from picking up their pitchforks, of course, should they have the desire and will to… Read more »

BigJim

It is simply all about POWER to rule over their subjects. While none of the laws pertain to themselves because ” I am holier than thou!”