Tough gun laws in Govt plans

by Helen Bain
in Wellington

The Government will pass tough gun-control laws early next year, Alliance minister Matt Robson says.

The legislation would require all guns – as well as gun owners – to be registered, probably by the end of next year, a ban on civilian ownership of military-style semi-automatic weapons, a compulsory buy-back of those weapons, and the probable establishment of an independent firearms-licensing authority.

A National Government bill last year had proposed registration of individual guns, but had not included other recommendations of the Thorp report into gun control, most notably an independent authority.

That bill had got as far as its second reading and had been considered by the justice select committee.

Mr Robson said yesterday that the Government could beef up that bill with amendments to encompass the full Thorp recommendations. He had Labour’s backing, and the strengthened legislation would be introduced early next year. The police would be greatly helped in armed-offender callouts if they knew how many guns, and what type of guns, an offender had – which individual gun registration would allow them to do, Mr Robson said.

The time it would take to get all guns registered depended on the resources put in, and the Government would put as many resources as feasible into the process, he said.

It was not an unrealistic aim to have all guns registered by the end of 2000, Mr Robson said. He would consider whether the police had adequate resources to implement gun registration – if not, an independent authority would be set up.

The law and order committee would look at how much registration and the authority would cost, Mr Robson said. “I know what it will cost if we don’t do it – it will mean more lives are unnecessarily lost.”

In a submission to the select committee last year, the Alliance costed the buyback of military-style semi-automatics alone at $7.9 million.

Mr Robson said he expected a backlash from the gun lobby, and had already received abusive letters, but he would not be deterred.

“There is a growing international reaction by members of the public against the gun lobby, particularly following schoolyard killings in the United States, where people are standing up and saying enough is enough,” he said.

The president of the Council of Licensed Firearms Owners Michael Reeves, whose organisation represents 220,000 gun owners, said Mr Robson’s proposals would be oppressive and costly for law-abiding gun owners, but would do little to stop shootings by criminals and the mentally ill. There was no evidence that any of the proposed measures would prevent shooting tragedies, Mr Reeves said. He expected no more than a third of gun owners would comply with the tougher laws.

“These are bad, oppressive laws, which will turn legitimate, law-abiding firearms owners into criminals,” Mr Reeves said.