What does 2008 hold for us?
Do you worry about whether shooting sports - and gun owners - have a future in New Zealand? With the anti-gun attitudes of our politicians and media, and all the red tape shooters have to put up with, it's a wonder anyone shoots at all.
Have you ever wondered what you can do about it?
Well, if you're concerned about the future of shooting sports, you're not alone. Concerned shooters like you formed the Sporting Shooters Association of New Zealand in 1989. Today the Association is a key defender of shooters rights and advocate of commonsense firearms laws.
You too can do your bit by joining Sporting Shooters and help us protect your firearms future.
Today's News & Comment
Copyright © 2002-2008 Sporting Shooter's Association, New Zealand. All Rights Reserved.
Policeman fires gun inside station
From NZStuff last week.
*Editorial comments in Blue -- Article unedited.
A Palmerston North police firearms instructor will be disciplined after one of his trainees fired a gun in the city's police station.
The officer was being trained in the use of a newly issued semi-automatic .223 known as the M4 Bushmaster, the Manawatu Standard reported today.
The bullet penetrated an internal wall, flew over the head of an officer sitting in the next office, smashed through an outside window and disintegrated. (went through a window and then disintegrated? How would they know? For all they know, it's still going.)
Acting city police chief Peter Thurston denied it was a narrow miss but said any accidental discharge of a gun was bad news.
There was an internal investigation into the incident -- believed to have occurred in November -- and the instructor would be disciplined.
Mr Thurston said it was a mystery of how a live round came to be in the gun the police officer was handling as it should have been loaded with blank bullets (guess he means cartridges).
Comment from Editor: These guys teach safe firearms handling INSIDE with BLANKS??? Or does the ignorant dipstick writing the article mean dummy (inert) practise rounds?
The policeman involved in the incident was one of a group of about three who was doing transition training because he wasn't on duty when the new guns were introduced, replacing a bolt-action .223 weapon.
The instructor had loaded the magazine so the presence of a live round was his responsibility.
Mr Thurston said as a result of the incident, police throughout the country were told to inspect and audit their drill rounds to make sure no live bullets(?) got into the process elsewhere.
The location of such training in the station is now being looked at so that in the unlikely event of anything like it happening again, nobody would be at risk, he said.
Unlikely? UNLIKELY??? This from the boys who, late last year, turned a quiet suburban street into the battle of the Somme while trying to ventilate a pooch?
Why the Name Change?
Well, actually it isn't.
A few months ago -- at the last Annual Firearms Fair, to be exact -- we were asked by several people why we only stood up for sporting shooters, rather than all shooters and enthusiasts.
The answer to that, of course, is that we do. Stand up for all shooters.
But we took the criticism on board, and at a committee meeting late last year we decided to go back to our roots as it were. And those roots are that we were once the Shooter's Rights Association (catchy name, don't you think?) and were seen to stand for the rights of all shooters.
Not just the ones who freeze their muddy butts off in blinds waiting for the elusive mallard, not just the ones who perforate paper targets on pistol ranges, not just the BP enthusiasts who smell like the Tet Offensive re-enacted or the SSMA collectors who always reek of Hoppe's and have worn their fingertips smooth polishing the American walnut of their Garands ... but all shooters.
All of us.
An article appeared in STUFF.co.nz a week or two back (10 January) stating that America was falling out of love with the gun:- "Is America's gun culture fading away?" Another MSM hatchet job on legal gun-owners, written with the usual cool, concise and (above all) unemotional style we have come to expect from the mainstream media. If you could use a laugh for the new year, you can still read it here:-
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4350325a12.html
Yes, Agatha ... they are still out to steal our stuff.
Guardian Unlimited
Thursday January 10, 2008
New gun control plans 'paper over cracks'
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2238475,00.html
The shadow home secretary, David Davis, today said government plans to ban deactivated guns by the end of the year would "do little more than paper
over the cracks".
His comments came after the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, speaking during a visit to Liverpool, said tough new laws would be brought in to target the supply of deactivated guns that were then reactivated and used in crime.
"Tackling gun crime is key to making people feel safer and more secure in their communities," she added. "We already have the tightest controls in Europe, but there is more we can do to remove the threat of gun crime. (and what could that possibly be?)
"I have asked the Serious Organised Crime Agency to prioritise gun crime to ensure we are doing all we can to target the supply of guns, generate fresh intelligence and reduce the use of guns amongst serious organised criminals," she added.
However, Davis said deactivated weapons accounted for a tiny proportion of gun crime.
"While we welcome any action, however overdue it may be, to tackle the scourge of gun crime, the government's own figures show that, in 2005-06, there were only eight incidents where deactivated or reactivated weapons were used - just 0.04% of gun offences," he added.
Davis said "sustained action" was needed to tackle the other 99.6% of gun crime, which he said had increased fourfold over the past decade, including a "sustained drive" to tackle serious drug abuse in Britain. He also called for a dedicated UK border police force "to stem the tide of drugs and guns" entering the country as well as less red tape for police and more prison places.
The Association of Chief Police Officers' firearms spokeswoman, Sue Fish, welcomed the proposals to outlaw deactivated guns, saying they "account for around 10% of all criminally used firearms submitted to the forensic science service".
She added that although recently deactivated guns were difficult to reactivate, they were often used to "threaten and instill fear in the public". (..."that's our job" she says.)
A Home Office spokeswoman confirmed that new restrictions would affect all firearms adapted before more stringent standards for deactivating guns were introduced in 1995, including antiques.
The move could therefore affect collectors and exhibitors of historic weapons such as flintlock pistols. "Pre-1995 means exactly that. We are aware that that might affect museums and collectors so any legislation would take that into account and would be proportionate," the spokeswoman said. (Okay, we get it ... priceless 16th century Tudor matchlocks and wheel-locks will be gently placed in the furnace and with more reverence ... perhaps even a soft word and a tear running down the cheek)
Firearms collectors have spoke out strongly against the new measures. Julian Tacon, a collector for 25 years, said they could have a major impact on collectors but predicted that they would be ignored by criminals.
"This could make life more awkward for legitimate people and collectors," he added. "A ban on antique firearms would be very worrying." (... more awkward? How about bloody impossible? Christ, these people are philistines.) Prior to Smith's visit, Merseyside police launched a series of gang and drug-related dawn raids. Twenty-eight people were arrested on suspicion of supplying Class A drugs in the Croxteth and Norris Green areas of Liverpool, with the number expected to rise.
The raids, carried out on 31 addresses, were led by the Merseyside police anti-gun Matrix team.
Matrix Team? MATRIX TEAM?? These wallies have been watching too many Kung-Fu DVD's. Also one is tempted to ask ... why is an anti-GUN team searching for drugs? Do the drug teams search for guns? And parking meter overstayers? And plastic panto swords? (see left). Workplace diversity, perhaps?
From our Moonbat Cousins in England:-
More Moonbattery from the UK
You think the article on the right is funny? Wait till you read about the plastic swords in the Christmas Pantomime.
If you need any further evidence that the British police force is under the control of stark raving idiots then here it is!
Panto pirates told to report their plastic swords to the police
IIf you're in the Cornish village of Carnon Downs and encounter a blood-thirsty band of sword-wielding pirates, don't worry. The police know all about them. For while the pirates are only amateur actors from the local panto, they have been ordered to alert the police that they are using weapons ...
[LINK HERE]
February 2008
You think the two stories on the left can't happen here? Here, in good old sensible New Zealand?
Well, here's the wake-up. The Poms may have an army of nanny-state loonies, but we've got Sue Bradford.
Think about that.