MontyB
All-Blacks Supporter
No but they are heavily regulated, in fact given the level of regulation we have a fairly high rate of gun ownership. The last figures I recall were along the lines of 1 million firearms owned by 240000 registered owners (obviously there are more when illegal gun ownership is taken into account).
Some not a huge amount, but here are some numbers from an earlier report.
I think (if you were to be honest) if you compare the per capita New Zealand figures with those of the USA it would be easy to draw the conclusion that gun control actually does work. But I have no doubt you will find a way to ignore reality (maybe post a new advert) and carry on with the ludicrous theory that more guns on the street = safer if nothing else I have no doubt it is boosting your bank balance and I will go on living happily in a country where I don't need to own firearms because I fear my government or next door neighbour and I can use them for fun, sport and recreation.
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Unfortunately I cant seem to link the source and I know there will be intense whining if I don't so here is the whole story.
Getting guns right
25 February 2006
New Zealanders own almost a million guns, but we have a remarkably good record on gun safety. MIKE STEERE investigates what we're doing right – and could do better.
Moving softly, silently brushing leaves aside, a hunter deep in the Kaimanawa Forest spots the deer he has been waiting for.
He moves into position and lines up his prey. Carefully focused, he takes aim, his finger tightens on the trigger and he fires.
The bullet enters the target's head at great speed and exits the other side – killing it instantly.
Unknown to the shooter, the victim is no deer. Taupo father Mark Leathwick, who was hunting in the same area as the shooter, was killed instantly by the bullet that entered his head through his cap.
The shooter, 24-year-old Christopher Martin Davies, was sentenced to nine months in prison and ordered to pay reparations of $5000, and has to face the horror of having killed someone.
Though an awful tragedy, Leathwick's death in 2003 is one of just 11 fatal hunting accidents to occur in the last 10 years in New Zealand, which, for the high number of guns owned by Kiwis, has a remarkably good record for gun safety.
Most people's experiences of guns are limited to hearing of their use in crimes or seeing them in the entertainment media.
Fortunately for Kiwis, the reality here is not as frightening as some of the excesses routinely reported from around the world or created by Hollywood.
Police estimate there are about 1 million guns in New Zealand – or roughly one gun to every four people. There are 239,000 licensed users, many of whom own more than one gun; an unknown number are held by unlicensed people, including criminals.
Although comprehensive international statistics on gun ownership are quite old (1994), they place New Zealand with higher per household gun ownership than Australia and Italy, and similar to Canada, Switzerland and France.
Yet, figures collected by the New Zealand Mountain Safety Council show relatively few gun-related deaths: 48 in 2003 and 55 in 2002. The Public Health Association previously reported an average of 80 gun deaths and 65 hospital admissions a year. The statistics are dominated by suicides, which account for 80 to 90 per cent of gun-related deaths; the balance is typically hunting accidents, accidental shootings, police shootings and homicides.
Compare this to the United States' 30,136 gun-related deaths in 2003 – nearly eight times higher per capita than New Zealand's figures – and our reason for being satisfied becomes more clear.
Earlier figures also show favourable comparisons for New Zealand. In 1998, Associated Press reported that New Zealand's gun-related deaths per capita were six times fewer than the United States, nearly half that of Canada, and fewer than Australia, France and Switzerland.
Not surprisingly, most people are primarily concerned with firearm homicides – they, in our minds, constitute the biggest threat from guns. Dairies get robbed, homes are invaded, people are mugged by firearm-wielding criminals. But, again, that concern should be low. Homicides with firearms make up less than 15% of all homicides – a rate lower than Australia and Canada.
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Our record is drawing international recognition. The director of the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific, Tsutomu Ishiguri, was in Christchurch this week for a gun-safety seminar and says he is "very impressed" with the low number of gun-related deaths in New Zealand.
Ishiguri feels nongovernmental organisations play a huge role in keeping the injuries minimal in New Zealand, and says this week's event showcased their ability to operate freely.
"If this sort of thing was organised in some countries it would be all police and politicians," he says of the conference.
Experts here credit other factors.
"We need society to help recognise if someone is no longer `fit and proper', because police can't monitor this all of the time." _Jack McConchie, Mountain Safety Council
Police national manager of firearms licensing and vetting, Inspector Joe Green, feels there are two major reasons for the statistics: legislation and education.
Green says the 1992 Arms Amendment Act put in place many safety measures for licensed gun owners, who have to be deemed "fit and proper" by police to own a gun.
He also speaks highly of our education programmes, implemented by the Mountain Safety Council.
The convenor of the council's firearms committee, Jack McConchie, is also happy with New Zealand's current system.
"What we have is a system that is almost the perfect balance between legislation and enforcement, and the community buying into the process."
He says the security measures put in place for the storage of weapons with the Arms Amendment Act has greatly improved safety around the home, where many accidents occurred in the past.
The act also attracted praise from Annette Beautrais, head of the Canterbury Suicide Project. She says that after its implementation, firearm suicides fell by 46%.
McConchie feels licensed gun owners in New Zealand are responsible, and the potential problem group is unlicensed owners, who are hard to track down.
But David Gray, who was responsible for New Zealand's worst mass killings – at Aramoana in 1990 – was a licensed gun owner, whom most people would not describe as "fit and proper".
Gray had fallen through a loophole which, before 1992, meant all registered users were issued new licences automatically.
McConchie says this area could still be tightened up today. "We need society to help recognise if someone is no longer `fit and proper', because police can't monitor this all of the time."
He is happy with the Mountain Safety Council's education programmes, but notes that continuing education is needed to keep gun- related deaths to a minimum. The council has made a submission on the Arms Amendment Bill now before Parliament. The submission argues that removing 100,000 firearms from circulation could be beneficial. It suggests old and unsafe guns could be collected in a "buy in" scheme.
Researchers at this week's firearm- safety seminar singled out individual areas where injuries and deaths could be prevented.
Although hunting accidents are only a small portion of New Zealand's gun- related deaths, American hunting accident investigator Rod Slings says investigating accidents is the key to alleviating future problems.
Slings, who describes his job at the Iowa Department of Natural Resources as "the CSI for hunting accidents", says New Zealand could benefit from carefully analysing the cause of incidents.
"We have to learn from these things, so we can warn hunters of the biggest dangers and fix problems that are occurring."
He says the use of bright orange clothing to make hunters visible in the bush is one of the benefits to have developed from this sort of research.
Many of these developments would be helpful in maintaining a low level of gun-related injuries in New Zealand – but only among licensed users.
The worry is stopping the thousands of unregistered firearms in New Zealand from becoming a bigger problem. In criminal cases, they often feature in robberies, but the trigger is rarely pulled. Authorities can only hope that part of the firearms equation, too, remains at a low level.
