SSANZ COMMENT: REVIEW of the MSSA Judgement (Lincoln.R vs NZ Police)

While the recent judgement that Mr Richard Lincoln’s H&K SL8 rifle is not a MSSA is a welcome one, it is far too early for firearms owners to rejoice and to think the MSSA stock issue is now settled. It is not. This ruling was only ever about the SL8 rifle. While by implication it significantly weakens the police case against other A -category semi-automatic rifles that have similar sporting stocks, it does not destroy it altogether.

Police have certainly previously pursued weak case through the courts and prosecuted on the basis that, if they win it sets a precedent they can use for decades and if they lose it would still have hurt the defendant financially far more than it hurt them. Taxpayers money is, after all, free.

What the judgement has certainly done is given police hierarchy stronger justification to now demand a law change on the basis that existing legislation is somehow “inadequate”. It should therefore come as no surprise to learn that Arms Amendment Bill no 4 is now ready and is due to be introduced into parliament on May 28^th, although this may happen sooner.

What is now obvious is that Police hierarchy have been unhappy with the legal status of ALL semi-automatic firearms from about the time they replaced their bolt action Remington 700’s with the semi-automatic Bushmaster rifle (a M16 military look-alike) and had already made the decision that more controls were necessary.

But instead of focussing their efforts (and our dollars) on the truly illegal guns of career criminals, police hierarchy have chosen to push the law of diminishing returns to the limit and create an even bigger problem for themselves by making thousands of presently legal guns illegal on the purely cosmetic basis of what their stocks look like.

One of the concerns we have is that police policymakers seem to be actively creating a situation that can only lead to an increase in the number of technical breaches of the Arms Act by otherwise law-abiding citizens.

Such an artificially created rise in “offences involving firearms” would certainly serve the gun control agenda now apparently in vogue among senior police officers. In a few short years it would allow police hierarchy to “prove” gun crime is rising, that they have “lost control” of semi-automatic rifles and that a total ban is necessary.

But what is even more disturbing is to think that among our most senior police officers there are those who believe that additional restrictions on the law-abiding somehow prevent crime and that making previously law abiding people into criminals through ill-thought out law changes has a higher priority than using existing laws to disarm and control real criminals. Or is it that Modern Policing has somehow lost sight of the very real difference between these two groups?

It is very clear that the new Arms Amendment Bill No 4 (due to be introduced into Parliament on the 28^th of May 2010) has been written so as to reword the definition of sporting stocks for semi-automatic rifles to allow police the powers they tried to take for themselves but were denied as a result of the Lincoln judgement. The new legislation will therefore be THE opportunity for police not only to make the Lincoln SL8 judgement obsolete but to also obtain ALL the law changes and powers they have wanted for years but could not obtain by themselves.

The next few months will be vital. Once the details of the new Arms Amendment Bill Number 4 are released, as many firearms owners as possible need to read it and then write a submission against the proposed bill. It is our understanding AAB4 will contain everything that was in the previous bill (AAB3) plus changes to the definition of MSSA’s, restrictions on Airguns (including soft airguns) and that all firearms sales and transactions must be through a dealer.

We also predict that Police hierarchy will argue strongly against the select committee holding hearings outside of Wellington. They (probably rightly) believe a major reason for the previous legislation (AAB3) not proceeding was the large numbers of ordinary firearms owners who attended hearings in the main centres, stood up for their rights and their various shooting disciplines and argued very persuasively that universal registration and other unnecessary restrictions would not affect criminals but only affect them-the law-abiding. It is a pity the one group who failed to hear or understood this message are the Police.

We would point out to both police hierarchy and to all members of Parliament that grass roots democracy is what best leads to workable, effective and properly targeted legislation. Therefore, any attempt by police management to fast-track the new proposed legislation, shorten the usual time frame for submissions or to restrict in any other way the democratic process must be strongly resisted.

We need to make sure that the democratic process of grass roots select committee hearings on the proposed firearms legislation remains as open, as fair and as democratic as it was before. Good Law demands it, no matter what reservations police hierarchy might have about allowing us to have our say.