Editorial: Rethink on gun licensing long overdue

Changes to gun laws are usually the product of tragedy. The last significant amendment to the law occurred after David Gray killed 13 people at Aramoana in 1990, and Australia's legislation was spurred by the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania in which 35 died. Now, the Napier siege sparked by Jan Molenaar's shooting of Senior Constable Len Snee should be the catalyst for further change. Two disturbing facts have emerged. The first is that Molenaar did not possess a firearms licence. The second is the size and scope of his arsenal, which numbered 18 guns, including military-style semi-automatic weapons. Those issues cannot go unaddressed.

Molenaar was one of an estimated 50,000 people who did not respond to calls to renew their licence or surrender their guns in 2002, following the Government's 1992 scrapping of the lifetime licence for 10-year licences. Since that campaign ended, police efforts to pursue expired licence-holders seem to have been desultory. Unlike Australia, there has been no amnesty, backed by a financial inducement, to mop up guns and increase registration.

Doubtless, the police would point to a lack of staff and funding as the reason for this inactivity. There might also be a perceived lack of crime-control benefit. If so, the Napier shootings should refocus their efforts. The threat posed by other unlicensed gun owners must prompt a one-year programme to locate the expired licence-holders and account for their weapons. If this administrative burden means further resourcing, so be it.

More broadly, the Government must re-examine the licensing framework. Once, every firearm had to be registered, but in 1982 it was decided this was impossible to organise with limited resources. Instead, owners were licensed. This system was sharply criticised by former High Court judge Sir Thomas Thorp in 1997 after a nine-month inquiry. His reasoning was sound.

In effect, the upshot has been a police force with no accurate idea of how many guns, legal and illegal, are in the country or how many stolen guns are in circulation. Even licensed owners can accumulate any number of sporting-style rifles or shotguns. Police have no way of knowing how many guns are in a house before executing a search warrant or tackling a domestic dispute.

Sir Thomas's solution was the registration of all firearms, the establishment of an independent firearms agency, the banning of military-style semi-automatics and the reduction of the 10-year owner licence to three years. Only the first was incorporated in arms amendment legislation introduced to Parliament in 1999. But even this has come to nought. Confronted by a welter of submissions from the gun lobby, the members of a parliamentary select committee demonstrated the sort of backbone more usually associated with their political counterparts in the United States.

In the wake of tragic episodes, it is easy to assume that parliamentarians will respond effectively. Yet such did not occur after Aramoana and, as memories continued to fade, MPs were content to let matters slide further. In the aftermath of the Napier siege, they must assess the issue with far greater purpose. A starting point should be the fact that the registration of firearms would merely bring New Zealand into line with virtually every other Western country. Equally noteworthy are the polls taken when legislation was last introduced to Parliament. They suggested almost nine out of 10 people supported a gun register.

This will not be cheap. Nor will it prevent criminals obtaining guns. But it would mean fewer guns would fall into the wrong hands and fewer lethal arsenals would be amassed for no good reason.