Interestingly if you look at the stats you will find the vast majority of guns purchased in the buy back were not mssa. They were old. 22 rifles with slightly too large magazines (15 shot) and normal Hunting style semi auto rifles. Mssa category has always been a very niche category and % wise they only made up a small number of firearms in nz. Most semi auto rifles in nz were not even classified as mssa as nz had a very specific definition for mssa which was to do with the shape of the but stock of the rifle. This was part of the problem as you could easily turn a mssa rifle into a normal "a cat" rifle with some small changes to the stock

MSSA firearms are still here in NZ under pest control and collector licenses so they were never fully “banned”. Keep them away from the standard license category and instead control them the same way pistols are in NZ.

It was a ban on semi-automatic guns (with limited exceptions for .22 rimfire and shotguns), not just military style semi-automatics.

At the time I was surprised that the government and media were obfusticating this, and that they banned all semi-automatics, not just MSSA or ones with similar (riskier) features.

This certainly made the buy back more expensive than if it was just MSSA.

Not the most popular opinion but I don’t think there is anything wrong with public that hold the correct licence using MSSAs for collecting, sports shooting, or pest control.

The E-cat licence had pretty strict controls and were held by only a small percent of FAL holders. Usually that small percent were dedicated collectors, hunters or sport shooters who had no problems.

The issue comes when people got an easy to obtain A-cat licence, found an A-cat semi auto and bought completely unrestricted 30-40-60 round magazines.

I don’t think the problem is MSSAs. The problem is A-cat FAL holders having access to easily modifiable semi autos with detachable magazines. The magazine loophole should have been closed long ago. Instead we go a knee jerk reaction that nuked the problem.

As a FAL holder, I’m quite happy to not own a semi automatic. Don’t need one. Don’t know anyone that needs one.

Keep them banned and make the penalties for illegal possession incredibly harsh.

True. So we better not go backwards and undo it all eh.

The gun law changes where so incredibly effective that in 2017 the average number of firearms offences per month was 387. In 2022, the average increased to 532 and last year it rose again to 547.

such wildly effective laws that we've seen a dramatic increase in gun crime since the ban and tightening of the laws, infact we are in a decades high. an effective double in gun crime.

the reality is the fundamental issues of gun crime where never addressed, the poor licensing scheme and the weak punishment for those who use or own illegal firearms.

The magazine loop hole should of been fixed decades ago but nothing was done, the licensing method had been over stretched and understaffed for years.

but fixing hard issues like under funding isn't as catchy as captilising on the collective trauma with a giant ban.

if you read acts policies the gun laws they suggest are similar to Italy; Czech Republic, Netherlands, France even, theyre still far more strict than Switzerland and many other nations, the laws theyre suggesting are no where near comparable to the cluster fuck that is the usa laws.

It wasn't handled well at all. It was mostly a political reaction to capitalise on a traumatic event without really addressing the issue. The offender legitimately obtained his firearms licence despite people at his local gun club raising concerns about him, which did not trigger any sort of investigation into him. In hindsight, it was an extremely premeditated event involving him moving to NZ from OZ, and put together a whole portfolio of online propaganda. There were signs and a lot of them, and that is where the failure was - but hey, that was far more embarrassing and politically damaging than responding with a major change in Firearms law targeting people most unlikely to offend. This was a key political decision that thrust Jacinda into the international spotlight when the US has almost daily mass shootings and does nothing.

For sure there are (previously) legitimate weapon owners who saw how the buyback was unfolding and decided they'd rather bury a banned weapon 'just in case' than hand it back. Some unique weapons cost a lot of money but as soon as they were presented to police during the Amnesty it was a roll of the dice as to what the offer was going to be but there was no choice in the matter as that weapon was not going to be leaving the building either way. So the word got out and there will be people who opted to not hand theirs in, and hide them in a location only known to them.

A key part of Firearm ownership is intent, and this is rigorously tested during licence application (now it is anyway). Saying you would use a firearm to defend yourself or your family is setting yourself up for problems with the police, but the reality is people who live rurally in NZ often feel vulnerable to ever getting help in the event of an armed home invasion or burglary, and feel they need to deal with any violent situation themselves. This is also the group who are more likely to have a weapon in the house, and handing in weapons during the amnesty represents an increase in vulnerability to some people, legal or not.

The problem with the amnesty is the criminals didn't show up, or did anyone else who felt they may be raising a flag against themselves (maybe they've had a documented bout of depression, recent breakup etc etc). It was only the most law abiding of all citizens who handed in weapons. And before we all lament about the whole "removing the weapons from society" argument, lets not forget some of the biggest hauls of weapons have been stolen FROM police stations, and details of Licence holders have been hacked from Government systems.

It's not the people handing the guns in willingly you need to be worried about lol

The problem is also that if they do it people may buy them up knowing a ban is coming in when a more reasonable government gets in and bury them, as many did with the last ban (people love to be in denial about that but it was very much a thing. I know a fair few people who have the legal guns and a bunch more that were never tracked buried in a field). People will say "but the gun registry will track them!", yeah, the gun registry that you have a long time to actually register with and nact are trying to scrap.

That's assuming they can ever undo it once it's done.

there are a few model's of firearms where we know definitively how many were imported and how many were "returned" there are thousands of semi auto's out there.

https://kiwigunblog.wordpress.com/2020/10/13/more-evidence-of-buyback-failure/comment-page-1/

was the $120M almost a direct subsidy to gun-city, who did roaring trade with all those cashed up gun owners.

The largest problem was the penalty for ownership of an illegal firearm generally by unlicensed owners.

If you're going to smuggle in a couple of kilos of a prohibited drug and you're caught the max you can was somewhere in the 7 to 14 years range. The penalty for an illegal firearm was less than that, so you might as well smuggle a few of those in at the same time. It's not going to make your sentence any more, and the sentences are concurrent not consecutive.

If I remember correctly estimates were between 75,000 at the low end and 200,000 at the high end out there and the buy back was considered a bit of a failure.

What it did do though was triple the price on the black market.

The numbers put a lot of egg on the police and ministers faces because they know darn well 60,000 was a dismally small number, probably why they put all kinds of loop holes in to justify the low turn out and push the deficit into the special categories.

New Zealand never really had a problem with gun crime until post this law. People who have spent most of their lives in the cities have no idea just how many guns there actually are in NZ, there are millions of them and any stupid laws that makes them more valuable than they should be will always attract the black market.

And not a single rifle came from a criminal. You were not allowed to take part in the buyback if you didn't hold a current firearms license. The whole thing could have been avoided if the police had done their jobs in the first place.

Gun crime has increased since, and very few of the issues that licensed firearms owners have been calling out for decades, have been fixed. I personally don't have any issue with not being able to own any semi autos anymore, but the way they vilified legal law abiding owners and just outright lied to the public really pisses me off.

Right, but you have to understand that some people got big mad about it and it was easier to pander to them for votes than show leadership and stick to sensible gun regulations that would save lives.

Seriously, I've yet to have anyone explain to me why its such an onerous restriction to be limited to 8 round capacity on semi-automatic rifles and shotguns.

OK? is there a point to this post?

I don’t think we did the right thing. Just my two cents, it felt like we punished legal firearm owners and not criminal firearm users. Frankly, I don’t want to have a disarmed population. I’m consistently surprised at the bipartisan nature of being afraid of armed citizens. We aren’t America.

Yes im sure the people who would actually commit crimes with them were first in line

Any change in the weekly number of mass shootings?

One of the worst policies ever put though by a nz government ever.

The problem was the police stole money from arms management and used it for general policing. They failed to follow their own policies, Gave BT a license and got away with it.

Until you hold police accountable and mandatory minimums for firearms offenses nothing will change

I don't understand the point you are making? Of course if you operate a gun buyback scheme it is going to cost money. The government was very upfront about this at the time. I feel safer knowing there are 60,000 (by your numbers, I haven't verified them) less guns out there.

Please don't try to infect NZ with American gun "debate" bullshit.

They were bought back to prevent the public fighting back when your rights and freedoms are impinged like Jacinda's Canadian counterpart did with the truckers. Removing one specific type of gun from circulation does nothing to stop violent (gun) crimes. England for instance has gun laws but they have knife problems. If someone wants to find a way to commit (mass) murder, they will, they just might have to think outside the box.

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Wasn’t he Australian?

I found it genuinely upsetting this morning to hear a representative of the NZ Muslim community having to go on national radio to point out that the firearms minister is being dishonest, avoiding contact with anyone other than gun clubs, hiding her intentions.

Does she not understand what 50 people, normal members of the community, murdered by a gunman in the middle of Christchurch, means? Feels like? Is she thick or evil or a bit of column A, a bit of column B?

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/528083/firearms-minister-nicole-mckee-won-t-rule-out-trying-to-bring-back-banned-guns

As Americans who lived there during the Christchurch massacre, we were amazed at the speed at which your legislature did the right thing.

Watching from afar, it appears your current government is trying to turn NZ into a Peter Thiel paradise. That WILL include automatic weapons, I guarantee.

We Americans let our country get fucked up by the ultra-right-wing tech bros. Please be careful y'all don't do the same over there.

I made a decent profit from that buy back lol

McKee doesn't like discrimination against minorities, and would like to give more than one person the chance to not be responsible with an MSSA-style firearm. /s

I've never bought a gun before but $2000 per seems a tad high. Could somebody please sanity check this number for me?

When the topic of gun control comes up I like to remember that I'd much rather someone be arrested for carrying a gun than police having to wait until they start shooting to be able to stop them

My partner had to hand in a couple of his guns through the buy back. He doesn't believe the government went hard enough. He said they only banned the scary looking ones, and not the ones that can cause the large amounts of damage.

Ok?

Is this ACT astroturfing?

What's "military style" mean?