Heather du Plessis-Allan: In the gun with mum after rifle stunt

Du Plessis-Allan opens the box of a .22 rifle that she bought over the internet using fake documentation. Photo / Supplied via Twitter

I never thought I'd have to make this phone call to my mum. The way she sucked in her breath on the other end of the line, she obviously never thought she'd receive it either.

This was when I told my mum I'm under police investigation. This is not a fun place to be in.

I have a healthy respect for everything about the law and getting on the wrong side of it is etching a deep furrow in the space between my hairline and my eyebrows.

We didn't order a firearm for a bit of a laugh. We ordered a firearm because Greg O'Connor from the Police Association told the public on radio 10 days ago they could order a gun via mail order - without a licence. You can't just leave that information out there. Criminals listen to the radio.

The guy from next door who takes the rubbish out way too late at night in his track pants listens to the radio. So do bored kids.

So we had to investigate it, and if it was as bad as we'd heard it was, make sure the flaw was shut down.

If you can order a gun with just a piece of paper, a pen and an email account, I think there's a problem.

The Police Minister has done a pretty good job of making it sound like there isn't a problem. Except, his department did fix a problem. Within hours of my calling.

Then they put out a press release.

And I'm not making this up, when I read the press release I had to call them back. It only talked about "online" sales. We'd bought our gun by mail order.

An hour later they changed their press release to say "online/mail order" sales. That's how fast they were moving to shut down the flaw we found. Too fast to check the words they were writing.

If I hadn't called the police, there's a good chance they may never have found out we'd bought the firearm. How many other firearms have been bought by mail order when they shouldn't have been? The answer is we don't know. The police don't know. The gun dealers don't know. No one knows.

When people who work in universities compare gun laws they draw up two columns. In the left-hand they write all the countries with strict gun laws. They put Australia and a whole group of other countries in that column.

In the right they put the countries with loose gun laws. There are two entries: New Zealand and the US.

No one wants to be compared to the US on gun control. Pre-1982 we might have slotted into the left-hand column. Then, gun owners had to register every firearm like cars.

It meant we knew who owned which gun, whose door to knock on if their gun turned up in the hands of a 12-year-old holding up a dairy. It meant we knew how many guns were in New Zealand. We don't know - for sure - now.

Don't get me wrong. Guns are okay. People hunt, shoot targets, put down cattle. Buying guns this easily is not okay. It needs to change.

Good on the cops for making it harder this week to buy a gun when you shouldn't be able to.

If you think that's a good thing, if you think that was something worth pushing for, then spare a thought for my mum.

Debate on this article is now closed.