Auckland diocese’s Justice and Peace Commission has told a parliamentary select committee that urgent attention should be given to the tight control of advertising of all gun sales, especially where young people might see it.
In a submission on a supplementary order paper (SOP) aimed at amending aspects of the Arms Legalisation Bill, the commission also called for consideration to “be given to investigating the contribution of video games that some
alleged perpetrators of mass killings claim to have used for training purposes.
These may be contributing to an unhealthy gun culture”.
“In the interests of a healthier, safer society we look forward to more comprehensive gun control measures continuing to be introduced,” the JPC stated in a presentation before Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Select Committee last year.
The JPC commended the Government on its intention to severely restrict the availability of automatic weapons and
to continue with its amnesty and buyback schemes.
The Government was urged to continue on the path of introducing a comprehensive programme to register all
guns, “without which the effectiveness of other laudable measures will be severely diminished”.
Addressing some of the technical aspects of the supplementary order paper, the commission stated its support for the extension of the legislation to the sale and use of pistols.
It supported many of the changes proposed, including a proposed expansion of the regulation making power in the Arms Act 1983 to prohibit categories of firearms through an Order in Council.
But while it acknowledged greater controls being proposed for pistol carbine conversion kits (PCCK), the JPC, in its oral presentation, stated that, “given the risks that these parts could pose to the general population, we recommend that they should be banned outright and subject to a six-month amnesty and buyback, like other prohibited weapons and parts”.
A pistol carbine conversion kit is defined in the SOP as “a frame or kit that may be used to convert a pistol designed
or adapted to be held and fired with one hand . . . that has an overall length of no more than 400mm, into a firearm that may be fired from the shoulder”.
The JPC submission acknowledged that “the effect [of such a ban] will be to place some limitations on those who
participate in pistol and Airsoft-type sports. But these limitations will not eliminate or endanger those sports.
They will merely affect the range of sub-disciplines accessible to participants. We believe that this is an acceptable trade off for public safety”.
In its presentation to the select committee, the JPC stated that: “Even eight months after the Christchurch attack, semi-automatic pistols are still openly advertised and sold in New Zealand.”
“We believe these should be banned outright and consideration be given to banning all pistols along the lines of the UK legislation. These measures will require the extension of the amnesty and buy-back scheme so as to include pistols.”
The submission also criticised trials of routinely-armed police squads in some areas.
What agenda driven ignorance. Shame on you. You certainly don’t speak for me. This speaks only to your perfect lack of understanding of every issue at play here.
I fully agree with you Mike these nutters don’t speak for me either.
Well, we are a Catholic family and disagree in the strongest terms with the views expressed in this article. In fact, we have intentionally bought more firearms following the law change.
This ‘council’ does not speak for me! Everything about this statement is evil, anti Christian and morally repugnant.
You do not represent the views of rational Catholics. We all know that it isn’t law abiding firearms owners and/or firearms that are the issue. Please stick to Catholic doctrine and affairs.
First, none of the previous or proposed new regulations had anything to do with automatic weapons aka machine guns, which have only been available to collectors, it is impossible for the public to understand the issue when the media and politicians use automatic and semiautomatic interchangeably. Secondly they claim banning Pcck’s won’t do too much damage to pistol sports, but later say they want all pistols banned. That’s what’s called cognitive dissonance.
Thirdly all these regulations just make life harder for the law abiding, not the criminals. A little known fact is that everywhere handguns or all guns are banned violent crime and murders stay the same or increase. In the USA as gun ownership and conceal carry has increased crime has decreased. Since the nineties Australia and the United kingdom have seen double digit increases in rapes, the USA a double digit decline.
Why can’t the Church stay out of my life. You tried to indoctrinate me all throughout school, and glossed over some horrific crimes your members did, and now you’re telling what they should and shouldn’t do? Go to hell.
Far moree mportant issues than this one, such as New Zealands high abortion rate. In reality gun deaths are extremely low per capita in NZ.
Start worrying about your pedaphile priests and leave law abiding firearms owners alone. There is more missery caused in New Zealand by your pedaphile priests than law abiding firearms owners.
This is bullshit. I’m a catholic and disagree with the above article. 99percent of gun owners are responsible people and arnt all rednecks as the media portrays them to be.
As a Catholic I am sad that this statement is based on a lack of understanding of how our firearms laws actually work. Pistols are legal when the the licence holder jumps through all the legal hoops. So whether of not they are advertised has absolutely no affect on how those that should not own they get firearms. It still astounds me how people who are not part of the hunting and shooting community like to use the term “given the risks”. Sadly JPC joins the list of other organisations who are ignorant about how all of this is managed and controlled already by NZ Police. That throw away line must be ignored unless you actually know what the risks are and can quantify said risks. BTW the Govt has put no restrictions on Automatic firearms (Not weapons as only Police, Military and criminals have weapons) they have restricted access to semi automatic firearms. Finally why not put pressure on this Government to explain who a Terrorist was given a licence by NZ police to legally buy firearms. Govt are very quiet on this and do not wish to wait until the Royal omission report is presented. I urge you not to be lazy and take the easy blame the gun route but do some research and see how a tragedy like this happened in the first place.
As a Catholic I certainly do NOT agree with the Auckland diocese’s Justice and Peace Commission submission on more comprehensive gun control measures continuing to be introduced. The same one-sided press and politicians that are pushing the abortion, euthanasia, and LGBTI agendas are also pushing the gun laws agenda. As someone who owns guns and had done a great deal of research on NZ gun statistics I think the JPC are WRONG!
The picture of the firearms on the wall used with this article is very disingenuous.
All of those magazines are likely to be more than 10 round capacity and hence prohibited even under the rushed and flawed legislation that now stands.
It is apparent that the JPC has as much understanding of the issue as Gun control NZ whose previous experience seems to include areas of research into sexual deviancy, and drawing laughter from select committees due to heir gross ignorance and ineptness.