Firearms Laws and Licensing

I posted the following as a rant in the wrong thread so I'm starting this one because I'm interested in what air gun users think. It seems to me if we choose to use air-guns we may be less into the macho bullsh*t that sometimes comes with some people and their firearms (FAs) , and as you will see I'm an opinionated prick who hates "tactical" designed FAs...

I first wrote:

OK here's my 5c worth of ranting about Firearms and licencing and the huge cock-up resulting from NZ FA laws changing a few decades ago and new laws are trying to fix now that the horse has bolted...

It's hard to argue that any decent air rifle is not a lethal weapons and I've always thought it silly that I have 2 springers that are more powerful than my PCP that requires a FAL.

Getting a FAL is not difficult but does cost a bit and seems to be getting more and more of a PITA process - my recently renewed licence because they reviewed the standards involved a form that took a couple of hours to sort with uploads of photos, ID etc and then a home visit checking my safe was effective and securely bolted to the wall. In fact they were way over the top in my view and wanted literally zero gap behind the steel cabinet "in case thieves put a strop round the safe and towed it off the wall with a motor vehicle" FFS, surely a battery powered angle grinder or gas axe would be a smarter idea for a thief and there simply is no 100% way to stop well equipped thieves who know what they are doing.

I also noted following paying for my first "Life-time Licence" card (to replace the piece of paper ca 1994) I was unaware things changed and my licence became an expiring licence. So the cops charged me a fee of literally double the fee to re-do the FAL - yes that's twice what I would have paid had I been making a new application. Arbitrary fee for no good reason really pissed me off and I initially wanted to raise hell about that fee but decided getting off-side with the local Feds was a very bad idea so I zipped my lip and just asked them why NZ had ever dropped the requirement to advise the cops when you buy or sell a firearm and have it registered by serial number on your licence by the cops. Yes, when I was a lad pretty much the same system they have re-introduced was in force - and removing that directly resulted in a huge number of firearms in criminal hands...the cops could not tell me why the old system had been dropped and now needed reinstating...now that the crims have a nice stock of guns to play with...

And I have to say, being a judgmental old bastard, when i went to the Thames Valley Deerstalkers clubrooms to sit the FAL quiz, there were about 15 lads re-sitting after failing the quiz and just by looking at them and their behaviour I reckon there is no way about 5 of them should be allowed anywhere near a sling-shot let alone a FA.

But hey, I'm the guy who simply cannot understand why anyone would want to own a FA or air rifle that looks like a military assault rifle - but around half the FA on the wall at Penrose Gun City are that kind of design. That's what the punters want and in my view if you want something that looks like an assault rifle best you join the army because man killing FA are mostly good for fcuk all else compared to FA designed for hunting or target shooting.  Can anyone explain why ANYONE has ever had a need for a military assault rifle in NZ? Maybe the early deer cullers needed a large caliber semi-auto but i can think of no other legitimate use so why did NZ change the law about late 70s or early 80s to allow the previously banned man-killers into NZ?

Oh...I forgot. We don't like using the words "assault rifle" any more because, y'know, that's what mass murderers use. So we call them tactical, which means basically military design and well, military generally means killing people so yep, a tactical gun is one that looks like a man-killing gun....

Anyway I digress - the FAL changes are a bullsh*t system trying to cover arse re-instating the really really bad dropping of good law. And pandering to the anti-guns lot by making the process of getting a FAL way more complex and expensive than it needed to be. FFS how many FAL holders - old type, new type, any type - have killed people with intent. Very few and the main one should never have been issued a licence with online gamers as his only referees. That was a cop employee failure that totally ignored the obvious intent of legislation - a referee by definition must know you pretty well surely..

Meanwhile the morons using assault rifles to shoot up people have much of the general public really anti firearms so I'd be surprised if sooner rather than later some PC clown makes air rifles subject to a FAL   I'm anti that happening mostly because FAL holder or not or not I think a killer is very unlikely to choose to kill someone with an air rifle - a much heavier projectile is more effective or if range is short, the 12 gauge makes the biggest hole.

We honest and good citizens seem to more and more often pay very dearly for the cops to keep us honest - achieving zero change in us and only minimal inconvenience for the crims who don't give a rat's arse about the Arms Act 1983.  And the latest from of that Act means with the stroke of a pen any or all air guns can be specified as  a "specially dangerous air gun" and then a FAL will immediately be required.      

  

Its fully understandable why they did it with pcp. A cop got killed. My objection with the testing by the NZ medical journal 8 march 2024 is they took a gun claim of shooting 1000fps to 1200fps obviously off the box, as no actual chrono data was provided, used a pellet with a brass tipped penetrater. They used a cadiver which no longer has moister or anything that imparts hydrostatic shock. Then pig into ballistic gel,
Ive never considered the gel a good medium. It seems to me that from videos ive watch that gel tends to allow more penitration than i experience in real life shooting. Its a comparison medium for differnt rounds in my view.
It brings into question the validation of the test in my view.
People accidently shooting themselves with a springer (which was a large portion of injures reported through air rifles) seems to be more of a case for auto saftey than trying to sway the argument towards having to licence air rifles.
Banning springers that shoot over 900 fps wouldn't worry me as it isn't needed to successfully bring down small game to a reasonable distance. Tends to make for more accurate shooting. It also gets rid of the buying the most powerful air rifle mentality, which in my view is an indication that your not ready to use an air rifle if thats what you judge a gun on.
Brass tipped or ball bearing pellets being banned wouldn't worry me either. They don't seem to provide a stable pellet.
A sling shot or bow type weapon would worry more at 5m to 10m.
They didn't seemed fussed about co2 either. That's used in arrow firing guns (air bows?) which i have watched videos on, and they seem to out preform compound crossbows in penitration.
It also is of no advantage to deprive kids the experience of learning to shoot. A projectile that has arched into the ground within a couple of hundred meters and lost penitration power well before then is much safer weapon than a 22lr, which is probly more likely to be brought if you're required to get a license.
A tactical style rifle is no differnt to a semi auto (fully auto is a differnt class) and it is totally irrelevant as to how it looks.
The cops not needing a license come strait from a cop who i know who was doing pistol training. I asked if he had got a pistol licence and was told then about them being exempt when on duty for needing one
I totally disagree with it. There is no excuse why they shouldn't need to abide by gun laws.
Recommendations by medical journals about changing springer laws because of idiots being idiots and few in number compared to the actual ppl who use them is just taking the piss.


Edited by kruzaroad - 13 Dec 2024 at 12:11pm

Cops and soldiers exemption from Arms Act 1983 conditions:

s3 (2) Nothing in this Act renders unlawful the carriage or possession of arms items,

Fair enough Kruza - I freely I'm an old man who does not like seeing anything remotely military involved in hunting or target firearm use for basically the same reasons you don't like airsoft shooting games. 

I think we could be talking about very similar mind-sets in these people.

Tactical, well most tactical stuff is ex military or made to look that way - camo has become fashionable.

But hey, as a kid we had fun with toy guns made to look tactical, which at the time was a revolver or I guess plastic "machine gun" copy that made cool rachet type noises to mimic an auto man killer.

But I also will never forget - and only as an adult now understand - my grandfather absolutely going ballistic (pardon the accidental pun) at us kids of 4 and 6 years old when he saw us pointing toy pistols at each other. He went from zero to 100 in a split second - he was angry AF and shouted at us "You don't EVER point any kind of gun at anyone you don't want to kill!!!"     We were stunned mullets and Mum heard the shouting and raced in and dragged us away from our loving grand-dad and told us never to play with toy guns at grandad's place.

We kids were not nearly old enough to be aware of his three gunshot wounds, plus face smashed up badly by shrapnel from his decorated WW1 experiences at Gallipoli and other places, And in those days they had not yet invented the PTSD that no doubt caused his out of character anger.

But I will never forget that unexpected reaction from my Grandad. And maybe that's part of why I don't like seeing people using military sh*t for fun...

Quite a read. I have an FX Impact that is quite tactical looking. I'm used to it, but I know that when a non gun person sees it they must think it's uber tactical.