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Newsletter February 2010
NZ Guns and Hunting March 2010
Why do our violent crime rates keep going up? Could it be our gun laws and the message they send to criminals?
The simplistic belief behind gun control is that the guns of otherwise law-abiding citizens “cause” crime. Thus, fewer guns in a society must mean less crime and, in their simple minded gun free Utopia no guns equals no crime.
Yet from the earliest days of gun control there was good evidence that this simplistic theory was not just wrong but actually a dangerous fundamental mismatch between social theory and criminal reality. Now, after almost a century of ever-tougher gun laws and far fewer legal guns in our society, reality has been conclusively demonstrated. Not only have the promised falls in crime stubbornly failing to materialise but crime-especially violent crime has risen sharply.
Yet, until now, existing social theory has always won out, to the point where the automatic response of a government or police force faced with rising crime (a small part of which will always be gun crime) has been to call for more and tougher gun laws. A knee jerk response that only makes the problem worse.
Our present astronomical violent crime rates and the ability of criminals to operate openly and apparently without fear of their intended victims or the police is not because we have weak gun laws but because of overly restrictive gun laws that have over decades selectively disarmed the law-abiding without deterring the criminal.
Nowhere is this perverse reality of gun control confirmed as clearly as in the USA.
In late December 2009, the FBI issued its preliminary 2009 crime report, showing that the number of murders in the first half of 2009 decreased 10 percent compared to the first half of 2008. If the trend holds for the remainder of 2009, it will be the single greatest one-year decrease in the number of murders since at least 1960, the earliest year for which national data are available through the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Also, the per capita murder rate for 2009 will be 51 percent lower than the all-time high recorded in 1991, and it will be the lowest rate since 1963—a 46-year low. Final figures for 2009 will be released by the FBI next year.
Yet over the same period the number of legally owned guns rose between 1.5 and 2 percent,(by over 4.5 million guns) to an all-time high. For the better part of the last 15 months, firearms, ammunition, and “large” ammunition magazines have been sold in what appear to be record quantities. And, the firearms that were most commonly purchased in 2009 are those that gun control supporters most want to be banned—AR-15s, similar semi-automatic rifles, and handguns designed for defense.
So, when it comes to gun control, we can now say that the science is conclusive!
Restrictive gun control laws do not make law abiding citizens safer, they do not make policing safer, they only makes violent criminals safer with society paying the inevitable price for such stupidity.
It is now impossible to deny that restrictive gun laws increase crime rates while more legal guns result in lower crime rates. From now on, no matter what gun control activists say, no matter what excuses they make, they cannot change documented facts. The facts say over and over again that gun control is a dangerously flawed ideology.
It’s high time our politicians and our police hierarchy stopped believing the myth that gun laws work and start to realise they actually create crime. Then we can finally get laws that work. Laws that don’t selectively disarm the law abiding, that do restrict criminals and that force the police to do their job properly without unduly restricting the rights of the law-abiding majority.
Last Updated (Saturday, 06 March 2010 12:25)
MSSA Court RulingTV3 News http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJeHkVs5iv4 Judge throws out police reclassification of sports guns4:00 AM Wednesday Mar 3, 2010![]() Police want to reclassify many "sporting configuration" weapons as military-style semi-automatics (MSSAs). Photo / Sarah IveyA High Court decision has set back efforts by police to impose greater controls on a wider range of firearms. The court has ruled against a move by police to reclassify many "sporting configuration" firearms as military-style semi-automatics (MSSAs). Police spent $60,000 advertising the changes. Owners would have had to undergo more stringent vetting, register each affected weapon and have a more expensive gun safe. But a High Court judgment released this week has ruled the police's reinterpretation does not comply with the Arms Act 1983. The judge said existing law did not intend the wider application the police had introduced. It was too early for police to comment on the possibility of an appeal. "Police need to fully review the decision and only then will be in a position to determine the appropriate action," spokesman Jon Neilson said. National Shooters Association president Richard Lincoln, who took the judicial review, said the police would have to scrap current plans to reinterpret what constitutes MSSAs. His association wants the police hierarchy, who changed the definition, to repay the money spent on the advertising campaign. The reclassification, part of which came into effect last June, focused on guns that have the function of a free-standing pistol grip even though the pistol grip may be attached to a stock. The police said the move was in response to design changes that gave some sports guns similar functionality to MSSAs. That interpretation had been expected to affect thousands of gun owners. "It seems to me, that in using the words it did, Parliament had in mind a particular kind of grip which it described in a confined way rather than the looser definition which the police now propose to apply," Justice Jill Mallon said. "If manufacturers are now producing firearms intended to get around the restrictions, and if that is of concern to the police [and others], then it may be that the legislation needs amending." Mr Lincoln had sought judicial clarification of classification of his Heckler & Koch SL8 rifle. The police took the view Mr Lincoln's gun was an MSSA. Copyright ©2010, APN Holdings NZ Limited
Last Updated (Saturday, 06 March 2010 12:17) Guns In IndiaNormal 0 false false false EN-NZ X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 SSANZ comment – same old stories – we know better than you do, control criminals by restricting legal gun ownership, but with a new Asian twist – make it more difficult so you have to bribe someone to get a licence.
New groups mobilize as Indians embrace the right to bear arms
By Rama Lakshmi Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, February 1, 2010
In the land of Mahatma Gandhi, Indian gun owners are coming out of the shadows for the first time to mobilize, U.S.-style, against proposed new curbs on bearing arms. When gunmen attacked 10 sites in Mumbai in November 2008, including two five-star hotels and a train station, Mumbai resident Kumar Verma sat at home glued to the television, feeling outraged and unsafe. Before the end of December, Verma and his friends had applied for gun licenses. He read up on India's gun laws and joined the Web forum Indians for Guns. When he got his license seven months later, he bought a black, secondhand, snub-nose Smith & Wesson revolver with a walnut grip. "I feel safe wearing it in my ankle holster every day," said Verma, 27, who runs a family business selling fire-protection systems. "I have a right to self-protection, because random street crime and terrorism have increased. The police cannot be there for everybody all the time. Now I am a believer in the right to keep and bear arms." Verma said he plans to join the recently formed National Association for Gun Rights India to lobby against new gun controls that the government has proposed, blaming the proliferation of both licensed and illegal weapons for a rise in crime. Although India's 1959 Arms Act gives citizens the legal right to own and carry guns, it is not a right enshrined in the country's constitution. Getting a license is a cumbersome process, and guns cannot be bought over the counter -- requirements that gun owners describe as hangovers from the colonial past, when the British rulers disarmed their Indian subjects to head off rebellion. In December, the Ministry of Home Affairs proposed several amendments to the Arms Act that would make it even harder to acquire a gun license, restrict the number of people eligible for nationwide licenses and curtail the amount of ammunition a gun owner can amass. An official said that the ministry has called for public input. But in the meantime, the proposals have given rise to a nascent gun rights movement modelled on the strategies of the United States' National Rifle Association and echoing its rhetoric of civil rights, dignity and self-protection. "We are outraged. We are not murderers. Instead of going after real criminals, the government is indulging in window dressing by bringing in gun control laws that target law-abiding citizens who have licensed guns,"said Abhijeet Singh, 37, a software engineer who started Indians for Guns and is the coordinator of the new gun rights association. "We want to remove the stigma on licensed gun owners," Singh said. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, 87 percent of murders by firearms in India in 2007 involved illegally held guns. There is no official tally of legal gun owners, but Singh cited a rough estimate of 4 million to 5 million. Last week, the National Association for Gun Rights India began meeting with lawmakers and consulting lawyers in a bid to stall the proposals. The group's president is a 39-year-old lawmaker, Naveen Jindal, who studied at the University of Texas business school in Dallas. Inspired by American students' displays of patriotism, Jindal earlier launched a successful campaign for Indians' right to display the national flag outside their homes and offices.
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Notice of SGM March 2010Notice of Special General Meeting of the Sporting Shooters Association of NZ Inc
You are hereby given notice of a Special General Meeting of the Association to be held on Sunday 14th March at 1.30 pm at the Deerstalkers Hall, Target Street, Point Chevalier, Auckland. Last Updated (Saturday, 02 January 2010 16:54)
Todays QuotesWe have compiled a few relevant quotes :- "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" George Santayana Last Updated (Saturday, 02 January 2010 12:34)
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