Dozens of Christchurch gun owners on Saturday handed over weapons in exchange for money, in the first of more than 250 planned buyback events across New Zealand after the government outlawed many types of semi-automatics.
Police said they paid more than NZ$430,000 (US$288,000) to 169 gun owners during the event. The money was paid directly into the bank accounts of owners.
New Zealand lawmakers in April rushed through new legislation to ban so-called military-style weapons after a lone gunman killed 51 people at two Christchurch mosques in March.
Photo: AFP
The government has set aside more than NZ$200 million to buy back weapons such as AR-15-style rifles, although many owners remain unhappy with the scheme.
Under an amnesty, gun owners have until December to turn over now-banned weapons.
Police said at least 14,000 guns across the country are banned under the new legislation. There are an estimated 1 million to 1.5 million guns in New Zealand and 250,000 licensed owners.
Under the buyback scheme, gun owners are compensated between 25 percent and 95 percent of the pretax price of a new gun, depending on the condition of the weapon.
People who own guns that are not banned under the new laws can also turn over their weapons during the amnesty, although they would not get any compensation.
Police said a half-dozen such weapons were turned in during the Christchurch event.
Police are using hydraulic machines to crush the gun barrels and firing mechanisms of the weapons that are handed in, rendering them inoperable, before disposing of them.
Mike Johnson, an acting district police commander, said the Christchurch buyback had been a success and the attitude of gun owners was “outstanding.”
New Zealand Minister of Police Stuart Nash said the results from the first collection were encouraging.
“Many of those who handed over firearms commented how easy the process is, how the prices are fair, and how police made the whole event go smoothly,” Nash said in a statement.
However, Council of Licensed Firearms Owners secretary Nicole McKee said the government was shortchanging owners by trying to complete the buyback cheaply.
Gun owners were forced to rely on police assessments of the condition of their guns and were not getting paid anything for the thousands of dollars they had spent on tax as well as accessories and ammunition, McKee said.
“They do want to abide by the new laws, but they have no incentive and they’re having fingers pointed at them and are being treated like criminals,” McKee said. “They’re angry at the way they’re being treated.”
The council has launched a crowd-funding campaign to raise money to fight against possible further government-imposed gun restrictions.
Hera Cook, a public health researcher who cofounded the group Gun Control NZ after the March attacks, said that before the massacre, most New Zealanders had no idea how easy it was to get hold of weapons like the ones that were used.
Hopefully the government enacts further gun control measures, including creating a register of guns and introducing shorter license periods for gun owners, Cook said.
Some of the gun owners complaints about getting short-changed or treated badly appeared to have some merit, and that “wasn’t a good look” for the government, she said.
Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian, has pleaded not guilty to terrorism, murder and attempted murder charges following the March attacks. He remains in jail ahead of his trial, which has been scheduled for May next year.
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
RSS