Why NZ’s ‘Quick Action’ On Guns May Not Be Ideal

By Tom Knighton

AP Photo/Vincent Thian

When I sit here and tell people that New Zealand is making a mistake by passing knee-jerk gun control legislation, it’s easy for people to dismiss me. After all, I’m an avowed pro-gun partisan with absolutely no sympathies for any of gun control’s arguments. I’m biased and pretty proud of it.

However, I’m not the only one who thinks the nation may be making a serious mistake. Samara McPhedran, deputy director of the Violence Research and Prevention Program at Griffith University in Australia, thinks New Zealand might be as well.

WPR: Assuming the proposed ban becomes law, what are some obstacles that New Zealand might face as it seeks to implement and enforce it?

McPhedran: Based on Australia’s experience after 1996, as well as what happened in Canada after it made substantial changes to its gun laws in 1995, it is likely that New Zealand will face considerable issues of non-compliance.

Unfortunately, in Australia, an unintended negative consequence of the legislative changes was that the new laws directly fed a black market in illegal firearms. Now, a sizeable proportion of firearms recovered by Australian police and intelligence agencies in the context of serious and organized crime are the same …Read the Rest

Source:: Bearing Arms