New Zealand Petition to stop Headlong Rush to Extreme Gun Law

U.S.A. -(Ammoland.com)- New Zealand gun owners are organizing and demanding due process after the government’s response to the mass murder at the Christchurch mosques.  One of the largest New Zealand gun stores, Gun City, is leading the effort to slow down and let reason and logic prevail over agenda driven emotion.  Gun City has made a petition available to its subscribers.  Gun City asks for reasonable restraint.  From guncity.com:

The proposed firearms law changes affect all New Zealanders. We want Firearms Licence holders to be fairly and reasonably treated.

1. We need an independent inquiry into the shooter obtaining a Firearms Licence
2. We want an accurate description of the firearms which the Government proposes to change the law on
3. We need an immediate indication of how the value will be calculated and when payment will be received
4. Will compensation include accessories and ammunition for the gun?
5. Will compensation be limited to just the items surrendered, or will other compensation be made for things such as the following:

(a) Already booked travel for events with the surrendered items
(b) Loss of investment in production equipment and shooting facilities
(c) Loss of employment
(d) Loss of income.

6. To please allow a reasonable timeframe to effect any changes.

It is hard for anyone reading the above requests to see them as other than reasonable. New Zealand experienced the first mass shooting of political terrorism they have seen in over a hundred years of existence as an independent dominion.  The existing far-left government has rushed to use the crises to push through their political agenda. They insist on passing legislation during heated emotion; to pass restrictions they could never pass after measured reflection and reason. The New Zealand press is reporting the petition. From nzherald.co.nz:

In response, Gun City emailed its subscribers today and urged them to sign a petition to Parliament.

The petition, in the name of Hayden Livingstone, started on Monday and had 10,786 signatures by 5pm on Friday.

The petition requested “an in-depth public consultation period on changes to New Zealand firearms legislation, to ensure effective firearms legislation reform that does not unduly punish law-abiding firearms owners while maintaining assurances of public safety”.

It called the Government’s gun law reforms “ill-advised, partly due to the speed at which they have been implemented and also due to (understandable) emotionally driven public pressure”.

New Zealand has an adult population (18 and over) of 3.78 million people. While the signatures were not formally controlled, they come from the subscription list of Gun City customers. Over 11,000 have signed the petition calling for measured restraint, reason, and common sense in the rush to pass the restrictive gun laws.  The equivalent number, in the U.S.A., would be 750,000 signatures.

One of the advantages of the U.S. Constitutional structure is to slow down the legislative process, to prevent the sort of emotional, passionate response the Left is pushing in New Zealand. From The Federalist no. 55, 13 February, 1788:

so there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn.

A few New Zealand gun owners surrendered their firearms voluntarily. Buzzfeed claimed that 37 firearms were turned in to police. That is equivalent to about 2,500 in the United States, or about what was turned in during the Phoenix gun “buyback” in 2013.  The Phoenix gunowners were paid a hundred dollars for their guns. A great many had inherited the guns. That seems the case in New Zealand as well.

New Zealand has a far higher percentage of gun owners than Australia has.

In a few weeks, the world will see if reason or politically manipulated emotion will prevail in New Zealand.

About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.

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