NZ Politics

560 readers

2 users here now

Kia ora and welcome to the NZ Politics community!

This is a place for respectful discussions about everything that's political and kiwi

This is an inclusive space where diverse opinions are valued, but please don't be a dick

Other kiwi communities here

Banner image by Tom Ackroyd, CC-BY-SA

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Newsable: Why are firearm owners so against the new gun registry? (www.stuff.co.nz)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

26 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

A bunch of dumb reasoning here. The Council of Licenced Firearm Owners spokesperson starts with a straw man right off the bat:

The first is probably the claim that has been constantly made that bringing in this register of firearms or legal firearms is going to suddenly overnight reduce firearms crime as a whole.

I've yet to see anyone claim it will "suddenly overnight reduce firearms crime". And then he moves to:

It's the same as saying that registering cars is going to prevent all ram-raids happening.

Well no one's saying that either. And we do register cars, even though we know it won't completely stop every single problem. This "if it doesn't completely fix every problem immediately it's not worth doing" attitude is peak stupidity. It's like they don't understand the concept of improvement.

It would be really interesting to see police investing more into the sources of crime, such as mental health, to reduce crime rates.

¿Por qué no los dos? As the Firearms Safety Authority executive director says:

I think that we need to be tackling gun crime in every way that we can. So police have invested in organised crime and in a firearms investigation team. We, as the regulator of firearms, are looking at how we can stem the flow of firearms to gangs and criminals. There's not one solution to fix here. There are multiple ways that we need to be tackling the problem.

The registry is a minor inconvenience to those who are following the law. The only people who should be worried are these guys:

we do know that there is a small proportion of licence holders who were diverting legitimately purchased firearms, to criminals and gangs, and we want to stem the flow of that. And the registry will help us to do that.

Edit: A word

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A nicely worded rebuttal there. It reads very much like that American 'muh freedoms' rhetoric that seems to be all-pervasive these days - no real justification beyond that feeling of loss of control. A clinical psychologist could base an entire career on this lot 😂

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

See my other post, but this is exactly what I'm talking about when I say that we (Licensed firearms owners) don't appreciate being misrepresented as a bunch of rednecks.

We're talking about a large group of people who's hobbies have been made significantly more expensive and inconvenient, and if someone tries to express our perspective we get written off with "lol they need a psychologist, lol freedums".

I hope you never find yourself on the unpopular side of a political football issue. It's less fun to be on the receiving end. Especially when you lose access to sports and activities that you love.