New laws will keep tabs on guns: police

By ALISON HORWOOD and PHILIP ENGLISH

Tough new gun laws are planned to give the Government an inventory of the one million firearms in New Zealand and who owns them.

This means police will know what guns are in a house before executing a search warrant or breaking up a domestic dispute, says Police Minister George Hawkins.

The changes are a follow-up to the Arms Amendment Bill introduced by National and are due to come before Parliament this year.

Mr Hawkins says the changes aim to make life tougher for criminals, not recreational hunters.

"People are sick and tired of their local dairy owner being held up by someone with a sawn-off shotgun, or taxi drivers being threatened."

The changes, which include recommendations from the 1997 report into gun control by Sir Thomas Thorp, mean that, by 2010, all guns, as well as their owners, must be registered.

Military-style semi-automatic weapons - used in mass shootings here and in Australia - are already banned from coming into New Zealand, and those already here can be sold only to the Government.

Mr Hawkins promises stiffer penalties for non-licensed gun owners and longer jail sentences for criminals who use guns.

In line with the Thorp report, next year will also mark the introduction of an independent Firearms Authority, taking the licensing, policing and inspection of guns out of police hands.

Police Association president Greg O'Connor supports safer use of firearms but is worried an authority will become a bureaucracy that "takes on a life of its own and does not liaise properly with police."

He said police did not receive adequate funding for firearms licensing, so it often took second-place. But guns were essentially a police matter because officers were the ones in the line of fire.

Police must pay to access car licensing, conviction and telephone records and he was concerned they would have to pay for firearms information.

But Mr Hawkins said police should not have to pay for the information.

Mr O'Connor predicted that the results of the new laws would not be immediately obvious, although in the long term, fewer guns would fall into the wrong hands.

Gang members were not expected to rush out and get licences, but it would be harder for them to pay others to buy guns on their behalf. When firearms were seized they could be traced back to the buyer, he said.

Dr Lech Beltowski, vice-president of the Sporting Shooters Association, said the reforms had the potential to increase violent crime and create a weapons black market.

Overseas evidence showed gun laws disarmed the law-abiding and gave criminals more power over them, he said.

Gun collectors at the country's largest arms fair, held in Waitakere City over the weekend, reacted with dismay to the new gun control measures.

Tony Daw, co-promoter of the 10th annual Auckland Arms Fair, said most of the measures made no sense. The registration of guns would not stop criminals using them or help solve crimes.

Handing gun control administration to a new authority posed serious questions about the security of information, Mr Daw said.

Another exhibitor, Ron Keven, said gun owners were probably the country's most law-abiding citizens, but were depicted as bad by gun control pressure groups - which the new laws were designed to appease.

But Alison Taylor, spokeswoman for the Coalition for Gun Control, applauded the moves, after what she called a period of stalling due to pressure from gun groups.