I listened to an interview on Newstalk ZB with Police Minister Stuart Nash and three questions came immediately to mind.
The Newstalk ZB headline for the interview was Police Minister admits NZ has a gang problem.
Nash’s admission is not surprising given the number of gang-related shootings that have already occurred in the first month of the new year. Over the weekend there were firearms incidents in Ruatoria and Napier. My first question for Stuart Nash relates to this statement that he made during the interview.
“We have confiscated more than $100 million of gang assets, and we are hoping to introduce laws that will allow us to go even harder on this.”
Nash adds they also have more gun legislation they hope to pass before March.
NewstalkZB
My burning question for Stuart Nash is what percentage (if any) of the “100 Million of gang assets” were illegal or legal firearms? Considering that the gang problems that we are seeing more and more now in the news are shooting related, surely he would have emphasised how many firearms the police so far have taken off the gangs. The fact that he didn’t quote any statistics relating to disarming the gangs, tells me that he has nothing good to tell us.
My second question for Mr Nash is his comment about bringing in more “gun legislation”. If the police so far have been unsuccessful at disarming New Zealand’s gangs then how will more gun legislation (no doubt aimed once again at law-abiding licensed gun owners) make a blind bit of difference to New Zealand gangs having firearms in their possession? Unless the legislation is going to state that gang members are not allowed to have guns in their possession for any reason whatsoever, then any further legislation is completely pointless.
Gun Legislation did not stop Tarrant getting hold of a weapon and ammunition even though legislation was in place that should have prevented him from doing so at the time. The problem was that the legislation was not followed. More legislation then is not the answer. Police need to enforce existing legislation.
My third and final question for Stuart Nash relates to his comment during the interview that he doubts that the gang shooter was a licenced gun owner. So far all the gun legislation has been targeted at licenced gun owners so his comment makes a lie of other statements he has made in the past about the new laws making New Zealand safer.
The government has spent a small fortune taking guns off the good guys. Imagine what they could have achieved if they had instead put all that money towards supporting the police to raid the bad guys and confiscate their gang arsenals.
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