On behalf of firearms licence holders

Locks only stop the honest. Cordless angle grinders have pretty much shat on any safe you can buy at a shop.

The historical requirement for storage was "safe from opportunist thieves and children" taking the bolt or mag out and putting it on top of the fridge was long regarded as she'll-be-right. NZ was saner then.

Back in the day I had a hollow-core-doored cupboard with two shitty locks signed off as secure storage.
I still know people who could loose thousands for the sake of punching through a bit of GIB board.

It's really up to the license holder how they value their tools/toys, as to how they go above and beyond the minimum requirement. Firearm burglary isn't actually much of a thing in NZ though.

Next wars will all be the playstation generation. Drone strikes from 20,000' controlled by nerds with Xbox controllers and highspeed internet.

Land-based invasions are probably over. Plus when the john rambos (in the bush who just want to be left alone) get involved, no foot-army really has a chance.
NZs SAS are globally regarded as top men. And probably women now, to be PC. Foreign leigon probably the only force that comes close, in regard.
NZ is just really cool.

I think familiarisation with firearms would take a lot of the bullshit scare factor and ignorance out of the public. obviously that doesn't go well if your intent is governing them by fear.
It would also decrease motivation for crime, knowing that getting shot is a likely outcome.

Anyone read about this?  (I was unaware)

reason.com/2024/10/25/new-zealand-government-punishes-gun-owners-for-their-political-beliefs/


New Zealand Government Punishes Gun Owners for Their Political Beliefs

The police targeted “sovereign citizens” for surveillance and disarmament.

J.D. Tuccille | 10.25.2024 7:00 AM


A common—and persuasive—argument against gun registration is that those who comply just put themselves on a list to have their firearms stolen by government officials in the future. As if to emphasize the point, the New Zealand government recently confiscated firearms licenses and the guns they covered from 62 people because of their political ideology. The situation is an important reminder that warnings against registering firearms are correct. But it also raises a red flag about governments' willingness to punish people for the ideas they believe.


Under the Influence of Ideology

"Sixty-two firearms licence holders with views aligned to the Sovereign Citizens movement had their licences revoked after a police intelligence operation," Catherine Hubbard reported for the Waikato Times on October 13. "Nationally, police identified 1,400 people as acting under the influence of Sovereign Citizen ideologies, and of that number, 158 were firearms licence holders."



If you're not familiar with the term, "sovereign citizen" is a general description for various people who deny the legitimacy of government and claim to live under common law separate from rules imposed by the state. That is, they go beyond the skepticism of government legitimacy shared by many people, including philosophical anarchists like Michael Huemer (I recommend his book, The Problem of Political Authority) and sometimes try to live by their ideas. They might refuse to use license plates and file liens against government officials while wielding garbled legal arguments that they—incorrectly—think will ward off unimpressed cops and judges.



Like anybody else, they're occasionally dangerous. But mostly, they're that guy who corners you at a party to tell you about his magic constitutional revelation that will immunize you against the income tax.



Sovereign citizens have found fertile ground in New Zealand, given a boost by the country's harsh COVID-era restrictions. And, for some reason, they really upset government officials in that country.



"The Police Security Intelligence and Threats Group's Operation Belfast in September 2022 aimed at identifying safety risks to staff from people influenced by Sovereign Citizen ideologies," Hubbard added in her piece. "In most instances, no charges were laid in respect of a revocation process, unless the former licence holder had committed a criminal offence."



Beliefs That Aren't 'Fit and Proper'

That's right, the country's police conducted a domestic intelligence operation to identify people who hold cranky ideological beliefs. They were stripped of their firearms licenses because they were no longer considered "fit and proper" to possess them.



I approached the New Zealand Police about the situation, but their press people refused to answer my questions. "Due to resourcing and our obligations to New Zealand media, we are declining your request for service," I was told by email.



Strictly speaking, I didn't ask for an oil change or a massage, just the sort of answers media representatives routinely cough up as part of their jobs. But if those are a service, I didn't get them.



Still, the Waikato Times article gave me enough information to search through the Firearms Safety Authority website, where I found a requirement that an applicant for a firearms license be "a fit and proper person to possess and use firearms." Among the potential disqualifiers for that status is if a person "exhibited, encouraged, or promoted violence, hatred, or extremism."



'Extremism' Is in the Eye of the Beholding Politician

Extremism is one of those words that politicians find very useful for smearing their critics. Opposing viewpoints are always extreme relative to the speaker, so it's easy enough for those in power to point fingers at those who disagree with them and call for unleashing the censors.



In fact, the New Zealand and French governments co-founded Christchurch Call, a campaign against "violent extremism content online." The campaign immediately became an amorphous bludgeon against speech government officials just don't like. Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who tried to ban "hate speech" when in office and has compared words to weapons of war, now devotes herself to "combating online extremism."



"For the past five years, New Zealand has been led by someone who has never really understood what free speech is, or why it's so important," Dr. James Kierstead, a research fellow with the New Zealand Initiative think tank, wrote in 2022 about then-Prime Minister Ardern.



So, perhaps it's not surprising that New Zealand officials believe simply espousing views the powers-that-be regard as "extreme" is reason enough to strip people of a piece of their liberty.



Warnings for Americans

While most Americans don't need licenses to own firearms, and we enjoy First Amendment protections for our speech and Second Amendment protections for owning the means of self-defense, we still need to consider the example of a liberal democratic government surveilling its own people and limiting the freedom of those found espousing "unacceptable" ideas. Just two years ago the FBI passed around a guide to "domestic terrorism symbols" that could indicate a proclivity for "militia violent extremism." Among the allegedly worrisome symbols were the Gadsden flag, the Betsy Ross flag, a black-and-gold anarcho-capitalist flag, and "Revolutionary War imagery." Getting tagged as an extremist isn't difficult.



At the same time, the government attempted to suppress discussions on social media when they crossed imaginary lines of acceptable dissent to government policy or were just inconvenient to politicians.



"For law-abiding American gun owners, the Kiwis' plight should serve as a stark reminder of the dangers of firearm registration, especially when coupled with a government that doesn't care about an individual's inherent rights, such as the right of their citizens to defend themselves and their families," cautions the Second Amendment Foundation.



That's absolutely true. While it's not always possible to evade government mandates, registering your guns just puts them on a shopping list for sticky-fingered officials. That's true of registering anything that you value and that powerful people might fear or covet.



Even more concerning, though, is the prospect of governments in supposedly free societies conducting intelligence operations against their people and punishing those who hold disapproved ideas. That's a great argument for getting rid of the need for government permission to go about our lives. Politicians will never approve of those who disagree with them, but we shouldn't need their approval.

A mother and daughter were shot on our mountain a few years ago . They were property managers and were carrying out a property inspection , the tenant had blown a gasket for whatever reason and basically executed them . I was home at the time and was unaware of what was unfolding as it was at the other end of the mountain . Come school bus pick up time I jumped in the car and drove down the hill to the local village . There’s only one road across tej mountain , on the last hairpin before the road reaches the main road there was an AOS roadblock , multiple black Nissan patrols and balaclava’s wielding assault rifles .

I hit the brakes in surprise about 50 metres from the 2 dudes blocking the road with rifles , I was also in a Nissan patrol , manual gearbox so clutch in brakes on . One of them signalled me to approach slowly so I took one hand off the wheel to shift into gear and these dudes went trigger ready and rifles pointed at the ground in front of my wagon . Turns out I closely matched the shooters description .

More recently a much closer neighbour started getting a bit aggro with a logging operation in his boundary which happened to be owned by my sons mate . They damaged a totara tree with their grapple digger and an argument broke out . He went home grabbed his semi auto and a Target , set up the target right on the boundary and proceeded to blast away at it in close proximity to the logging operations . Police were called and dude was sent home hopefully with a warning . A week later the logging crew heard shots very nearby at smoko , one brave member walked down the neighbours drive to investigate and came across the neighbour shooting at a hoarding of one of the local candidates for mayor that he’d set up as a target . Police called again , dude sent home no more shots during logging .

Few months later , target shooting resumes . nearest neighbour to shooter asks him to stop as it’s freaking them out a bit . He sets up his target parallel to their boundary very close to their house and let’s rip on semi . Police called , dude gets sent home , no more problem shooting but the odd shot at possums and pigs . Few months after that dude gets into a fist fight with a neighbour on his other boundary over some dumped tyres , police get called by other neighbours wife and 3 police units arrive very quickly and dude gets taken home by a large contingent of police . This was a couple of years ago and there’s been no more shots so I guess the guns are gone .

Guns and easily triggered blokes are not a great combo .

Pity he didn't post something nasty about Cindy online, would have lost the guns long ago.