Jack Tame: Gun violence now doesn't mean the buyback was a failure

Opinion

OPINION:

When Jacinda Ardern and Joe Biden sat down, one subject was totally inevitable.

Touring the US in the days after its latest massacre(s), the New Zealand Prime Minister was asked by almost every politician or late-night TV host about gun reform. As far as they were concerned, the March 15, 2019 mosque attacks happened and within days her Government acted. Almost immediately she took steps to get military-style semi-automatics off the streets. To many Americans, it was the sort of common-sense policy-making that seems desperately distant in the United States of Mass Shootings.

Of course, the real story was more complex. At the same time as Ardern was being celebrated by the American left as a heroic bastion of gun reform, Auckland recorded yet another worrying series of public shootings. Police have arrested 19 gang members for firearms and drug offences in relation to the incidents, but over the last few weeks, it has felt like only a matter of time before someone innocent ends up catching a bullet.

In one sense, this spike in gun crime isn't an aberration: 2021 had the highest number of firearms offences in at least the last 15 years. But the events of the last few weeks represent the crossover between two intertwined problems: gangs and guns.

US President Joe Biden meets with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in the Oval Office at the White House. Photo / Getty Images

We don't know exactly what guns have been used in each of the different public shooting incidents of the last few weeks. A shooting in Beach Haven last night appeared to involve a shotgun, which can obviously be legally purchased. But critics see the headlines of the last few weeks as evidence Jacinda Ardern's gun buyback scheme was a failure, ie if the buyback had worked, we wouldn't be having shootings.

I agreed with the critique of the Act Party at the time the buyback was announced - gangs and criminals were never going to voluntarily hand in their weapons at the local cop shop. Can you imagine?!

In the days following the latest US massacre(s), Jacinda Ardern was asked by almost every politician or late-night TV host about gun reform. Photo / Mark Mitchell

But the criticism also misses a fundamental point. The buyback was never likely to have a massive impact on gun crime in the short term. Outside of hopefully preventing possible massacres in the future, the real benefit of the gun buyback scheme will be realised over time, when gangs and criminals can no longer steal weapons that have been legally purchased by law-abiding gun owners. Previously it wasn't difficult to continuously supply a black market with military-style rifles. And with no gun register, it was impossible to track anything.

But now, the source has dried up. Gangs will have to rely on their current caches, legal firearms or on smuggling illegal weapons into New Zealand. Even though the buyback scheme meant law-abiding citizens were stripped of their military-style semi-automatics, ultimately it should also restrict the supply of those weapons to those with illicit intentions.

This is little comfort right now, especially for the communities in which gang-related gun violence is most prevalent. So what more can we do? Act might have opposed the gun buyback scheme, but the party also wants a different law change to combat the current
violence: if a lawful police search discovers an illegal operation, a gang member and an illegal gun, the Crown would fast-track the seizure of assets.

This is not a silly idea.