How Many firearms are needed in NZ?

TedE, very sensible posts, Thanks. Indeed we do not more aggression. Unfortunately I can see the day when our Law Enforcement agencies are going to need to be armed full time, as they are in many countries now, due to the lawless elements in our communities. Increasing the penalties may not work either due to the fact that many of the lawless treat prisons as training schools for their unlawful activities and if they are fined very seldom bother paying.

The arguement that only Law Enforcement agencies and criminals being the only ones with access to firearms leads  to Dictatorship is the well used arguement of people like the NRA and their ilk and does not stand up to too close scrutiny as firearms are carried by Police in many countries that do not have any resemblence to “Dictatorships”. And, to ask who can tell the difference between Govt. Agencies and criminal would appear IMHO, to show the link with NRA and their self-serving agenda.

I do not profess to having the answer to the problem of criminal access to weapons but I would venture to say that the fewer high powered weapons around the better. The business of a 13y.o. writing to the Prime Minister because she would not be able to pursue her “sport” without a high-powered military style rifle beggars belief and, on the surface, smacks of a copycat situation cashing in on the youngster involved in Climate Change.

Oh Arandar, have I got it wrong. I know about the owner of Gun City, David Tipples daughter. She shot in the Olympics or World Champs of some sort. Isn’t she about 16yo? The one I was referring to is only 13yo and, from the TV bit I saw, her father was on and he wasn’t David Tipple. Well at least I don’t think he was. My point was that wasn’t it curious how she suddenly cropped up just after the Swedish youngster was on about Climate Change.

I cannot understand why people want to own and shoot automatic weapons, I have been a shooter all my life, from a youngster with a BB gun, to a serviceman with access to all types of weapons. I have been in cup winning teams of rifle shooters from all services and it is the skill attained in these competitions that was the joy of the sport. I never found any such joy in firing off many rounds in random automatic shooting. There is no skill there and surely skill is what should be aimed for in any sport. Automatic weapons are solely for the military.

I think there is some confusion about the difference between Automatic Weapons and Semi Automatic Weapons. Weapons that the legislation is aimed at is Semi-Automatic Weapons primarily and AK47s and their ilk are classed as Semi-Automatic by virtue of the number of rounds they can fire without the need to re-cock. Have I got that right?