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Monday, December 23, 2019

New Zealand Gun Buyback Was An ‘Unmitigated Failure’

Many New Zealand gun owners have refused to participate in a mandatory buyback program of military-style semi-automatic weapons implemented after the Christchurch massacre in March.

Despite a penalty of up to five years in prison, up to two-thirds of firearms banned by the legislation were not turned in before the Friday deadline by New Zealand gun owners, the Washington Post reported.

While 47,000 semi-automatic rifles have been collected, according to police statistics, a government commissioned study determined that the small nation likely contains between 56,000 and 170,000 now-banned weapons, according to 1 News.

New Zealand’s largest gun rights advocacy group, the Licensed Firearms Owners Council, remarked that the buyback program has been an “unmitigated failure.”

Police Minister Stuart Nash blamed the government’s inability to enforce its buyback scheme on a lack of gun registration. “The problem is we just don’t know exactly how many guns are out in the community, this is why we need a register, to enable Police to better track firearms,” he said, according to 1 News.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Exactly why we should NEVER have gun registry.

Anonymous said...

That is what Hitler did in Germany. First they required all guns be registered. Then they banned them and took them away from the Jews.

Anonymous said...

Article says he was far right? He literally stated he was a ecofashist and hated republicans because they are killing the environment. He believed the world was ending in 12 years. So media says nope he was far right?