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'We just ask to be heard' - gun owners feel ignored as second phase of law reform looms

May 14, 2019

Council of Licensed Firearm Owners’ Nicole McKee talks to Breakfast about new gun laws.

Police Minister Stuart Nash is gearing up for the second phase of the gun law reform and intends to present options to cabinet in June - but gun owners feel they're being ignored.

The changes in gun laws comes after the March 15 Christchurch terrorist attack that killed 51 people at Al Noor and Linwood mosques.

The banning of all semi-automatic and military-style weapons became law less than a month after the attacks.  This means gun owners have to hand in their now illegal guns by the end of September.

In a second phase of the gun law reform one of the options the Government is looking at is implementing a new gun register which Council of Licensed Firearm Owners' Nicole McKee does not support.

She told TVNZ1's Breakfast she feels gun owners are not being listened to, saying: "We just asked to be heard".

Ms McKee feels Mr Nash has already alienated firearm owners.

"He's lifted the stick and he's wiped them hard with it," she says.

"He hasn’t consulted with a group of law abiding people on the first tranche that came through.  We now have Government’s second amendment that’s coming through and we’ve had no consulation.”

Ms McKee says there needs to be a consultation with the firearms community so they can assist the Government and police in coming up with solutions that are cost effective and the taxpayer agrees with.

She says introducing a new gun register is not cost effective.

"We need to look at how we can effectively use that money to keep New Zealand safe and registration has been proven to not achieve that.... ...we need to address the issue, rather than put an expensive bandaid over it."

"0.7 per cent of firearm homicides are committed by licensed people. That’s really really low and we’re looking at throwing a billion or hundreds of millions of dollars at that 0.7 per cent, we just believe that that money could be better spent somewhere else."

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