THE 1997 REVIEW OF FIREARMS CONTROL: AN APPRAISAL.

INTRODUCTION

In August 1996 the Minister of Police commissioned Mr (now, Sir) Thomas Thorp, formerly a judge of the High Court of New Zealand, to conduct a review of firearms control in this country. Initially, the report was due for presentation by 28 February 1997 but, as a result of extensive public interest and a large number of submissions, in December 1996 the completion date was extended to 30 June 1997. In all, 2,884 written submissions were received. In addition, consultations with informed parties were conducted, public hearings were held in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, a number of Australian states were visited, and six empirical research projects were undertaken by independent consultants. The final report, Review of Firearms Control in New Zealand, is 281 pages long, including appendices. It is by far the most detailed and comprehensive report on firearms ever conducted in this country. Although the Arms Act 1983 was amended extensively in 1992, the review proposes further significant changes. The purpose of the current paper is to analyse the findings of the New Zealand firearms review and discuss the viability of some of its major recommendations.

BACKGROUND TO THE REPORT

In order to understand the recommendations of the report and the intense interest it generated, it is necessary to know a little about how firearms law has evolved in New Zealand, and why the report came about.

Firearms control in New Zealand commenced with the Arms Ordinance of 1845 and was amended a number of times until 1920, when the first detailed firearms legislation, the Arms Act, was passed. The Arms Act 1920 set the foundation of firearms law until its first major revision in 1983. Until 1983, the fundamentals of arms law were that specific firearms were registered to specific owners. Persons wishing to purchase a gun had to obtain a permit to do so from the police and then register the weapon with the police once it had been procured. Pistols were subject to extraordinary restrictions from 1920, and ownership required a special licence. The 1920 law was replaced by a new Arms Act in 1958, which tightened some aspects of the law, relaxed others, but generally made no substantive changes.

In 1983, however, as a result of a survey which had found a large proportion of errors in the arms register, the registration of firearms was scrapped (Forsyth 1985:95). Under the Arms Act 1983, persons wishing to own firearms had to be vetted by the police and pass a simple written test. Those who satisfied police requirements were issued with lifetime licences, allowing them to purchase and possess rifles and shotguns. Controls over the number and type of guns owned were dropped in the case of long guns, but ownership of pistols still required an endorsed licence with special conditions attached.

Implementing the new act was the largest administrative task ever undertaken by the New Zealand Police (AJHR 1985: G.6:9) and initially it was perceived to be working well. Firearms received almost no comment in the House of Representatives for the rest of the decade and, although violent and criminal firearms offences grew significantly (by 57% and 55% respectively) in the six years following the act, violent gun crime still remained low, at less than 2% of all violent offences (unpublished police data).

So unconcerned was the government of the day about gun control issues that, after 1986, approximately 12,000 cheap, military-style semi-automatic rifles (MSSAs) were allowed into the country with little control over their importation (NZPD 1992 v.525:8754-65). In 1987, when the New Zealand Army converted to the Steyr rifle, the government added to the nation's private stock of assault weapons by selling 2500 of its 7.62mm Self-Loading Rifles direct to the New Zealand public. Initially there was no media reaction either, but by 1989 news of massacres in Hungerford, England, and Hoddle St and Queen St, Melbourne in 1987, followed by Stockton, California in 1989, all by gunmen using assault rifles, prompted the Commissioner of Police to ban the importation of military semiautomatics in 1990. Although a High Court challenge overturned the ban, it was replaced immediately by a customs ban.

Apart from the issue of MSSAs, until the end of 1990 the 1983 Arms Act was uncontentious and it attracted little comment in parliament. Private fears were growing, however, and by the late 1980s there was a growing trickle of articles and letters to newspaper editors warning of the dangers of uncontrolled gun imports and sales. Suspicion that overseas massacres would result in tighter gun laws in New Zealand also led to the formation of a lobby group to preserve the status quo. This group, formed in November 1989, was called New Zealand Shooter Rights (Newbold 1997a:186).

It was exactly a year after the formation of Shooter Rights that the concerns of both pro- and anti-gun restriction advocates came to fruition. In November 1990 David Gray, a licensed gun owner, went on a rampage at Aramoana in Otago and killed 13 people. The weapon which Gray used to slay at least nine of his victims was a Chinese-made military semi-automatic (O'Brien 1995).

Reaction to the massacre was rapid. The Aramoana incident occurred just a few weeks after the government had changed from Labour to National in a general election and the new Minister of Police, John Banks, flew immediately to the crime scene. He promised a review of firearms law, which finally came in November 1992 in the form of a comprehensive amendment to the Arms Act and its accompanying Regulations. The fundamentals of the Arms Amendment Act are that lifetime arms licences have been replaced by 10-year renewable ones, with photographs of licensees added. All existing owners have had to re-apply for these licences. Each applicant has been individually investigated and has been denied a licence if unable to prove himself or herself to be a "fit and proper" person. One next-of-kin and one unrelated referee must attest in a confidential interview to the applicant's suitability to own firearms. People without licences are now prohibited from buying ammunition. Firearms not in use have to be kept in a locked cabinet, separate from the ammunition. The re-licensing process commenced in 1993 and was completed early in 1998. Approximately 240,000 licences were given, with an estimated 85,000 holders of the old licences failing to apply for new ones.

The greatest law changes have been directed at the owners of MSSAs. All owners of military-style semi-automatics had until 1 May 1993 to get rid of their weapons, to convert them to sporting configuration, or to apply for a special "E-Category" licence at a cost of $200.00 every ten years. All E-Category applicants underwent rigorous examination in order to satisfy police that they were suitable to own an MSSA. When not in use, all MSSAs must now be stored in a safe or strong-room which must be approved by police before an E-Category licence can be issued.

Many gun owners were unhappy with the new law and Shooter Rights (renamed the Sporting Shooters' Association of New Zealand (SSANZ) in late 1992), with a membership of 3500, had campaigned vigorously against it. In response, in June 1993 an antagonist organisation known as GunSafe was formed, headed by television personality Philip Alpers. From that point a lively debate developed between GunSafe on the one hand, pushing for even more stringent gun controls, and SSANZ lobbying for existing gun-owning rights to be retained.

Apart from public squabbles between GunSafe and SSANZ, further firearms massacres in New Zealand and overseas also served to maintain the profile of the firearms debate. The Aramoana incident had been the first firearms massacre in New Zealand since 1941, but after it came the Schlaepfer shootings in Paerata in 1992 and the Bain shootings in Dunedin in 1994. Overseas there were well-publicised mass shootings in Sydney and Texas in 1991, in New South Wales in 1992, in New South Wales and San Francisco in 1993, and in New South Wales and Washington D.C. in 1994.

Although these killings kept the arms debate alive they did not throw into question the efficacy of the new laws. But in 1995 and 1996 a series of incidents in New Zealand and overseas cast the issue of gun control back into the political arena. In July 1995 Ron Lewis ran amok with a pump action .22 rifle in Wainuiomata. Although he killed no one he was wounded by a police volley and lost both his legs. In September 1995, in Invercargill, Eric Gellatley broke into a sports store, stole guns and ammunition, and began firing wildly up and down the street. He was shot dead by police. Less than two months later, Barry Radcliffe suffered a similar fate after doing the same in Whangarei. Finally, in April 1996, Terence Thompson killed Constable Glen McKibbin with a rifle. After a nine-week manhunt, Thompson was discovered by police and killed in a stand-off.

Two overseas incidents were of dramatic significance as well. In March 1996 in Dunblane, Scotland, Thomas Hamilton, armed with two pistols, shot 16 children and their teacher to death in a school gymnasium. Six weeks later, at Port Arthur in Tasmania, Martyn Bryant used an MSSA to murder 35 people. It was the largest peacetime shooting in history.

In Australia and Britain reaction to the killings was swift. In Australia in May 1996, private ownership of semi-automatic rifles, and semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns was banned. A federally-sponsored buy-back of these weapons was organised at a cost of $A300 million. In Britain, the Dunblane massacre led immediately to attempts to prohibit all handguns from private ownership. Delayed by political opposition until after Labour took power in 1997, the ban was finally effected in January 1998.

In New Zealand, pressure for another review of gun laws commenced almost as soon as news of the Port Arthur slayings broke. Initially, Police Minister John Luxton suggested that existing legislation was enough (Dominion, 1 May 1996). However statements by GunSafe and a call from the New Zealand Police Complaints Authority (AJHR 1996 G.51: 10) in 1996 changed his mind. In August 1996 the minister announced that an investigation would take place. As noted, the report of the subsequent inquiry, Review of Firearms Control in New Zealand, was commissioned and duly presented to the minister on 30 June 1997.

THE 1997 FIREARMS REVIEW

The 1997 Review of Firearms Control, which I shall refer to as the firearms review, consists of eight chapters and eight appendices, over 281 pages. It carries extensive discussion about matters such as the history of firearms control in New Zealand, firearms numbers, firearms usage and misuse, and the principles of firearms legislation in New Zealand and overseas.

In Appendix i, the review makes a large number of often detailed recommendations for changes which cover 28 principal areas. Some of them, such as the recommendation that the law should specify that self defence is not a legitimate purpose for acquiring a firearm, or that prospective firearms owners provide evidence of adequate storage arrangements and pass a course in firearms safety, are uncomplicated and not really contentious. Other recommendations relate to details of how earlier suggestions might be implemented.

The most important recommendations are those which propose significant changes to existing law with the objective of increasing the security of New Zealanders against the risk of being killed or injured by a firearm. These are as follows:

1. That a Firearms Authority be established to administer firearms law and regulations in New Zealand, for a period of at least five years but possibly on a permanent basis (Recommendation 27).

2. That the ownership of handguns by registered handgun owners be limited, with some exceptions, to six handguns (Recommendation 3).

3. That MSSAs be banned and subject to a government buy-back (Recommendation 4).

4. That all "restricted" weapons, such as machine guns and other military weapons that are currently owned by registered arms collectors, be permanently disabled (Recommendation 2).

5. That sporting semi-automatic centre-fire rifles be limited to a magazine capacity of seven cartridges (Recommendation 5).

6. That semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns be limited to a capacity of two cartridges (Recommendation 6).

7. That persons convicted of certain violent or firearms offences be automatically subject to firearms licence disqualification periods of between two and five years, depending on the offence (Recommendations 10.2 and 11).

8. That a better system be established for vetting the suitability of licence applicants and assisting the removal of licences from the mentally disturbed (Recommendations 12 and 13).

9. That ten-year renewable firearms licences be replaced by three-year licences, with all weapons owned by a licensee recorded on the licence/s (Recommendation 14).

10. That purchase of ammunition be restricted to ammunition appropriate to the arms listed on a gun-owner's licence (Recommendation 20).

ANALYSIS OF RECOMMENDATIONS

Although the firearms review was intended to provide a comprehensive re-evaluation of all firearms law in New Zealand, it is important to remember the circumstances which prompted the review and the context in which it took place. This was that, following and notwithstanding the 1992 amendment, five high-profile firearms incidents occurred (Bain, 1994; Lewis, 1995; Gellatley 1995; Radcliffe, 1995; and Thompson, 1996). Apart from David Bain, who had no psychiatric history and who held a valid arms licence, these incidents involved men without licences, whose instability would have made them ineligible for licences, and who misused guns which had been illegally obtained. Indeed, while the firearms review was in progress, a further incident of this type took place. On 8 February 1997 at Raurimu, Stephen Anderson, a diagnosed schizophrenic whose firearms licence had been revoked, killed six people with a shotgun he had taken from his father.

Adding to the atmosphere of concern were the atrocities at Dunblane and Port Arthur. These random mass killings were performed with weapons that are restricted under New Zealand law -- pistols at Dunblane and an MSSA at Port Arthur. Of the two, only Hamilton at Dunblane had a licence. Bryant had never owned one.

Looking at the circumstances that led to the firearms review, it is unlikely that any of the tragedies could have been prevented by the recommendations which the review produced. As noted, Bain was outwardly normal and his license was valid. The weapon he used was a semi-automatic .22 rim-fire, which is not covered by the magazine restrictions proposed for centre-fire weapons. Stephen Anderson was unlicensed, and he took the shotgun he used immediately before the killings. It was a single-shot weapon without a magazine. Both Gellatley and Radcliffe had medical histories of mental disturbance. Gellatley had never had an arms licence and Radcliffe's had been revoked. Both of them stole their weapons from dealers' premises immediately before running amok. The weapon that Terence Thompson used to kill Constable Glen McKibbin was a bolt-action sporting rifle, which he had no licence for. Ron Lewis, who used an ordinary sporting weapon in Wainuiomata, was unlicensed too. He took the rifle he used from his brother, a licensed owner who had not locked his weapon up in accordance with the law, immediately before the shootings.

None of the New Zealand events, therefore, could have been prevented even if the review's recommendations had been in effect. Of the two influential overseas incidents, only Bryant's could possibly have been affected. Thomas Hamilton had no history of mental illness, and the rules that govern pistol ownership in Scotland are at least as rigorous as those in New Zealand. Under the arms review recommendations, however, the MSSA that Bryant used would have

been illegal. On the other hand, it must be noted that Bryant owned the weapon illegally anyhow. Moreover, had he not gained access to an MSSA, he could still have used a sporting semi-automatic with spare magazines preloaded, with just as lethal effect. So it is unlikely that these scenarios, either, could be prevented in New Zealand by any of the proposed changes.

If that is the case, then the recommendations of the report need to be examined in order to establish what, if any, beneficial effects might flow from them. Such an analysis needs to bear in mind the costs and other practical exigencies that might accompany implementation. I shall refer to the principal recommendations in the order that I have listed them above.

An Independent Firearms Authority

The first recommendation is for the temporary or permanent establishment of an independent Firearms Authority to administer firearms law and regulations. For over a hundred years this duty has been undertaken by the police. But the police have admitted that they do not have the resources to handle the major task of gun re-registration, if that option is chosen, and they acknowledge that arms control has had a low priority in their overall planning. According to Thorp (1997:48), the police have been reluctant to prosecute breaches of arms law, have not obtained adequate resources to establish and maintain new arms control systems, and have virtually abandoned data-gathering procedures in relation even to basic firearms issues. For example, they have no data on how many firearms are reported lost or stolen annually (p.31) and even where reported offences are recorded, the rate of miscoding is extremely high (p.56). After re-licensing began, and until 1994, the police kept no record of licence holders who had died or who wished not to renew their licences (p.36). Currently, therefore, it is difficult to know the number and identity of old licence holders who have surrendered their licences, nor the number and identity of those who have not bothered to re-license and may thus possess firearms illegally.

Options for the future administration of firearms, prepared for the review by consultant Ian Miller, are contained in Appendix v of the report. The five alternatives he proposes are:

i. the status quo (no cost estimate);

ii. an independent advisory board to oversee the police ($74,500 per annum);

iii. an independent sunset Firearms Authority, with responsibility reverting to the police after, say, five years ($4 million per annum);

iv. a permanent independent Firearms Authority ($4 million per annum); and

v. responsibility for arms control to be absorbed into another government agency (no cost estimate).

The status quo, which is likely to be the least expensive, is not favoured principally because arms licensing is not, and never has been, a top priority issue for the police. On the other hand, the Firearms Authority option (permanent or temporary), which is favoured by the review and which on paper has the largest number of advantages and the fewest disadvantages, is also easily the most expensive. There is not space here to examine in detail the various alternatives and their weaknesses and strengths in relation to cost. It is sufficient to say, however that, whatever option is taken, the efficacy of the choice is likely to depend very much on what resources are allocated to staffing, and what technology is made available to whomever the responsibility of arms monitoring is given. Since it is unlikely that the efficacy of monitoring will increase in proportion to expense, it is for the government to decide which option will provide the best outcome in terms of its dollar investment.

Restrictions on Various Weapons

There is a series of proposals relating to further restrictions on weapons such as pistols, MSSAs, machine guns, and sporting rifles and shotguns. The first of these is that the existing limit on the number of handguns a handgun licensee user may possess be reduced, generally, from twelve to six. The logic of this is that the greater the number of legal handguns there are, the greater are the number of handguns which are likely to enter the criminal community.

Today, handgun owners are carefully vetted before issuing them with licences and guns must be stored in locked safes or strong-rooms. Research conducted by the present author for the firearms review (Newbold 1997b) indicated that illegal handguns are relatively easy to obtain in New Zealand, although their cost is high. Some of these guns had entered the black market after having been stolen from registered owners, almost always in situations where the weapons had not been stored correctly. It was also apparent from the research that a good proportion of the illicit handguns available in New Zealand had never been registered, having been smuggled off foreign ships. According to customs officials, the volume of illegal guns and other items being smuggled into New Zealand is high (The Christchurch Press, 12 May 1998). If this is the case, it seems unlikely that halving the number of handguns a registered owner may possess would have any great impact on the availability of handguns on the black market.

Government Buy-Back of MSSAs

The next proposal is that (at a total estimated cost of about $21 million) (Roper 1997:137), MSSAs be banned and be subject to a government buy-back. The logic of this is clearly linked to the deadly firepower of such weapons. Although an MSSA has only been used once in a mass slaying in New Zealand (Aramoana), with 13 murdered, the shooting was also easily New Zealand's bloodiest. Overseas, in the carnage at Falun (Sweden), Hungerford (England), Stockton (California), Spokane (Washington), Strathfield (Sydney), Queen St (Melbourne), Hoddle St (Melbourne), Top End (Northern Territory) and Port Arthur (Tasmania) between 1987 and 1996, MSSAs were the weapon of choice. Pistols, sporting rifles, shotguns, knives, and staves have also been used in mass slayings, but none of these weapons are so suited to killing such large numbers of people so very quickly. The Australian government claims that 74% of the victims of mass slayings in Australia and New Zealand over the last decade were killed with MSSAs (Roper 1997: 136). There is thus a strong argument that assault rifles should be prohibited, if only to restrict the lethal potential of amok murderers.

In New Zealand since the 1992 amendment, MSSA owners have been extensively vetted before being given an "E" endorsement allowing them to continue having such weapons, and MSSAs have had to be stored in a locked safe or strongroom. A random police check of security compliance conducted at the request of the firearms review in 1997 found that in the case of MSSAs there was 100% compliance with the law (Thorp 1997:149). Research that I conducted for the review found that of all weapons available on New Zealand's black market, MSSAs are the most difficult to obtain, as well as being the most expensive (Newbold 1997b). Registered MSSAs are seldom stolen. The bulk of those currently circulating on the black market are weapons which "went underground" after the 1992 amendment. In fact, of the 15,000 or more MSSAs estimated to have been in New Zealand in 1992 (NZPD 1992 v.525:8754-8765), only 6500 were finally registered. Since a government buy-back of MSSAs would not have any effect on the number of unregistered assault rifles in the community, it is doubtful whether a significant reduction in the risk of an MSSA multiple slaying would result. Moreover, rapid-fire sporting rifles, which under the review's proposals would not be prohibited, could be equally lethal. The justification for investing $21 million in an MSSA buy-back is thus open to question.

Permanent Disablement of Restricted Weapons

A further suggestion is that all "restricted" weapons (such as machine guns, rocket launchers and anti-tank guns) be permanently disabled. The argument in this case is that the killing potential of such weapons is great and if used by a person intent on mass murder, could result in great carnage.

Under existing law, restricted weapons are owned by people such as bona fide arms collectors, museums and film production companies. Owners are heavily vetted before being given a licence and a high level of storage security is required. Weapons must be kept in a temporarily inoperable condition and must never be fired with live ammunition.

The principal opponents to the proposal are the collectors, who argue that owning a permanently disabled weapon is similar to owning a vintage car that cannot start. Numerous collectors have spent large sums of money on their weapons, many of which are rare, and they know that permanent disablement will destroy the value of their collections. As far as movie and television companies are concerned, it is difficult to see how they could make certain action films if the weapons they used could not even fire blanks. The only reference I have to machine guns being used in a civilian mass killing is Chicago's St Valentine's Day Massacre, ordered by mobster Al Capone in 1929. But in that incident, since the seven victims had been taken prisoner, they could have been killed with any firearm. In New Zealand, the only time a machine gun has been used in a murder was in the double homicide committed by John Gillies and Ron Jorgensen in 1963. In this case a Reising submachine gun was used, but it was operated in a semi-automatic (not a fully automatic) state (Williams 1987:92). As far as I am aware, there have been no murders involving rockets or grenades in New Zealand.

In truth, because of the high security requirements surrounding restricted weapons, it is difficult to see that their existence poses any significant threat to the lives and safety of New Zealanders. For the aspiring mass murderer desiring spectacular results, a bomb comprised of more readily available materials such as gelignite, semtex, or even gasoline, would be a far greater possibility and a much greater danger. Permanently disabling restricted firearms, therefore, would seem to me to be an unnecessary imposition on legitimate restricted licence-holders.

Sporting Long Guns

As far as sporting long guns are concerned, the review makes two recommendations. The first is that semi-automatic centre-fire sporting rifles be limited to seven cartridges. This recommendation is really a reaffirmation of an existing situation since under the 1992 amendment, that any rifle with a magazine capacity of more than seven cartridges becomes an MSSA and requires a special licence. Continuing the distinction is unproblematic but it is interesting that .22 rim-fire semi-automatic rifles, such as David Bain used to kill five of his family in 1994, remain excluded from the seven-shot recommendation. The logic of the exemption, although it is not applied to shotguns, is that semi-automatic .22s are useful for pest control (Thorp 1997:142). In the case of .22 rim-fire semi-automatics, the existing (and recommended) magazine limit is 15 cartridges.

It is worthwhile noting that limiting the magazine capacity of sporting semi-automatics is not necessarily a panacea for mass murder. This is because many sporting semiautomatics have detachable magazines. In the case of such weapons, it would be easy for someone intent on mass murder to increase illegally the capacity of a seven-shot magazine, and even easier to purchase a number of spare magazines and pre-load them. Thus armed, a person using a standard sporting semi-automatic would have almost as much firepower as one using an MSSA.

The second recommendation relating to sporting long guns concerns shotguns. While allowing semi-automatic rifles to have seven shots, the review considers that the capacity of rapid-fire shotguns should be reduced to two cartridges. Because the cost of a buy-back would be high ($35 million), the review proposes that magazines of semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns could be reduced, with the cost being borne by the state. The argument here is that, at close range, the shotgun is potentially very lethal and could be used with deadly effect in a mass killing.

Of all the recommendations, this is one of the most difficult to sustain. Notwithstanding the debate over whether restricting the magazine size of shotguns is reversible or not (Thorp 1997:140-141), the logic of limiting shotguns to two shots, while allowing rifles to contain up to seven, is unclear. An expanding bullet fired from a high-powered rifle causes serious trauma at long range or short, even if it only strikes a limb. It is no less dangerous than a shotgun. Moreover, the review notes that there is no evidence of rapid-fire shotguns being employed extensively in crime and no such weapon has ever been used in a mass killing in New Zealand (Thorp 1997: 139). In the two instances where shotguns have been used, one was double-barrelled (Schlaepfer), the other was single-shot (Anderson). Rapid-fire shotguns are valuable in the control of pests such as rabbits, hares and wallabies and are currently permitted in many areas where the game-bird population is excessive. The need for such weapons in New Zealand is no different from that of the semi-automatic .22 and, on balance, it is difficult to see that restricting the magazine capacity of shotguns would serve a useful purpose.

Owners of Firearms

The final series of proposals relates to the owners of firearms, rather than the firearms themselves. The first of these is that persons convicted of serious violent offences, violent offences involving a firearm, domestic violence, or against whom a final protection order has been made under the Domestic Violence Act, be automatically disqualified from holding a firearms licence for between two and five years, depending on the offence.

The above recommendation arises out of a perceived need to guarantee that those who are licensed to possess firearms are fit and proper persons. Currently the decision to grant or revoke an arms licence lies largely with the police. Under their Arms Manual, the police have considerable discretion over whether to grant or revoke a licence, with violence and disregard for the Arms Act and arms regulations being among the reasons listed. The objective of the Thorp recommendation, which seems fair and reasonable, is to retain the existing flexibility except in serious cases such as those outlined above. In such circumstances it appears justified that police discretion should be removed and be replaced by licence disqualification of a fixed minimum period.

There are a variety of suggestions relating to checking the suitability of licensees and reducing risk of access by the mentally disturbed. Suggestions include the vetting of prospective licence holders by consulting the police domestic violence database and certain mental health professionals. Moreover, it is suggested that when a compulsory treatment order is made under the Mental Health Act, the police should be notified so that any firearms licence can be suspended. These recommendations are an extension of that relating to disqualification of violent licence holders, and their logic is similar. But it must be remembered that prospective licence holders are already extensively vetted, and that the police already have wide discretionary powers to deny or remove licences. Perhaps a formalising of information exchange between mental health services and the police could improve the detection of disturbed firearms owners. In New Zealand, the only mass murderer with a psychiatric history was Stephen Anderson, and he stole the shotgun he used. At Dunblane and Port Arthur, neither Hamilton nor Bryant had psychiatric illnesses, and Bryant was not licensed anyhow. So while tightening controls over the mentally disturbed may improve the security of firearms holders slightly, it should not reduce incidents involving deranged gunmen to any marked degree.

A hotly debated component of the firearms review concerns the registration of firearms which, it will be recalled, was discontinued in 1983. The review suggests that, once again, guns should be registered to their owners. It also proposes that the licensing period be reduced from ten to three years.

The issue is a complicated one, and receives considerable discussion on pages 175-186 of the report. In a society of gun owners who have grown used to minimal controls, there is already considerable resistance to registration, with many existing owners seeing registration as a precursor to having their weapons confiscated entirely. For this reason, the report notes, a law requiring registration is likely to result in massive non-compliance. The police recall that, in the past, firearms registration was of little assistance in crime solving, and there is disagreement about whether it would assist in crime prevention and control. Registration would assist police to confiscate firearms in cases of domestic violence, but it is noted that, at present, accurate information about gun ownership is normally available from complainants. Registration would also have to deal with problems over matters such as changes of address, the death of registered owners and the borrowing of firearms by other licence holders.

Nonetheless, it is the opinion of Sir Thomas that registration should proceed, primarily because it would increase the individual responsibility of gun-owners for their weapons. In some cases it would allow better protection to front-line police entering potentially violent situations, and it would allow more accurate record-keeping about the distribution and types of firearms in the country at any one time. It would also facilitate the return of stolen-and-recovered firearms to their owners. The three-year re-registration cycle is favoured in order to keep track of address changes, deaths of owners, and so on.

Cost estimates of re-registering are various, but inevitably they would be high. Thorp (1997: 180) cites a Coopers and Lybrand assessment that re-licensing at three-year intervals would cost $10 million to set up, and $7.3 million per year for the first six years or $53 million in total, over and above existing costs. These costs could best be justified, the report notes, if a level of 90% compliance could be achieved.

The re-registration of firearms is attractive for a number of reasons cited above, and it is indeed the case that many of the arms control problems we face today derive from the 1983 decision to de-register. Whether or not re-registration would achieve 90% compliance would depend largely, it seems, on the degree of energy expended in establishing the system and the amount of commitment invested by the police and the courts in enforcing it. As that commitment increased then so, of course, would the costs.

A further recommendation relates to the purchase of ammunition. Currently, any licence holders can buy any type of ammunition, even ammunition designed for a restricted firearm for which they do not have a licence. For example, a Class A (sporting rifle or shotgun) licence holder is able to purchase pistol ammunition. The reason for this is that, although some ammunition is weapon-specific, a lot of it is not. A huge amount of ammunition can fit more than one class of weapon, and some weapons can fire more than one type of cartridge. For example, a .357 Magnum pistol can also fire .38 Special ammunition and 9mm-pistol ammunition is fired from a variety of submachine guns. A large range of sporting-rifle calibres are also used in pistols, MSSAs and machine guns. The chamber sizes of some firearms, such as the .243 and the .308, are identical; so is the .270 identical to the 30-06. One calibre can be changed to another, simply by swapping barrels. Rifle barrels can be purchased without a firearm licence.

This idea could only be applied if registration took place, and even then, because the law would relate to specific weapons rather than classes of weapon, it would face even more difficult questions than those that currently exist. To be effective, gun-shop sales staff would have to become familiar with the many varieties of cartridge and calibre interchangeability. It is unlikely, given the complexity of the matter, that this could be achieved with any degree of success. The recommendation, therefore, would probably be impossible to implement.

DISCUSSION

For more than a year after the submission of the firearms review, no action was taken. Apart from a flurry following the release of the report, it generated little public discussion. But late in August 1998 the Minister of Police, Jack Elder, revealed a government plan to implement a limited number of the Thorp recommendations. Without providing great detail, the minister announced that penalties for unlicensed possession of firearms would be toughened and widened, a police auditing programme would be set up to identify high-risk users, and doctors would be required to inform police if they believed a mentally ill owner to be a risk. Most significantly, it was proposed that individual guns, numbering approximately 700,000, would be registered at a cost of $7.50 each.

Of the numerous other recommendations, little was said. But the minister specifically addressed the matter of MSSAs, saying that he did not ban them because he did not wish to alienate their owners. Somewhat predictably, GunSafe spokesman Philip Alpers and Labour Justice spokesman Phil Goff were reported to be unhappy about the exclusion of MSSAs and, equally predictably, gun-owning advocates were dissatisfied about relicensing. However police representatives, including the Commissioner of Police, were comfortable with the government's response (The Christchurch Press, 26 August 1988).

In the light of the foregoing discussion, it could be argued that the government has taken the only action viably open to it. Apart from the financial cost of any other possible moves (for example, $21 million to buy back MSSAs; $35 million to buy back rapid-fire shotguns, $53 million to register firearms on a three-year cycle), the report's major recommendations would have had little objective impact on firearms security. Moreover, the political risks would have been high. Nothing, apart from a series of mass killings, perhaps, would have been more likely to re-ignite furious argument about gun control than a government decision to implement the firearms review's principal proposals. Whatever the government did or did not do, it would have created enemies. Among the more radical elements of the anti-gun lobby, anything short of a total firearm ban would have been seen as inadequate. For the country's 240,000 licensed firearm owners and many of their partners, tighter restrictions would have been considered gratuitous and punitive. The reaction to the August declaration illustrated the volatility of the issue. But public comment was only short-lived and is probably an indication of general community acceptance of the government's moderate approach.

CONCLUSION

The 1997 firearms review produced the most comprehensive discussion of gun law in the history of this country. The report provided a valuable snapshot, not only of the nature and types of firearms believed currently to be in existence, but also of the patterns of usage and misuse in contemporary and recent times. Although the report was compiled with a high level of competence, the present critique concludes that only a few of the report's major recommendations could be justified on the basis of cost-effectiveness, fairness or practicability. Certainly for the purpose of increasing police efficiency and maintaining an effective national firearms database, some of the recommendations are of value. However, the presence of large numbers of illegal firearms in the community, the relative accessibility of these weapons, and the difficulty of identifying mentally unstable people -- whether they be gun owners or not -- in time to prevent disasters from occurring, mean that the probability of firearms misuse are difficult to alter. In the foregoing discussion I have argued that, not only could none of the post-1990 massacres have been prevented by any of the recommendations of the firearms review, but the risk of another mass murder, or the rate of firearms-related death or injury generally, would not be changed either.

REFERENCES

Forsyth, C. (1985) Firearms in New Zealand, New Zealand Mountain Safety Council, Wellington.

Newbold, G. (1997a) "Gun control in the 1990s" New Zealand Sociology, 12(2):183-210.

Newbold, G. (1997b) "The criminal usage of firearms" unpublished research paper prepared for the Review of Firearms Control.

O'Brien, B. (1991) Aramoana: Twenty-two Hours of Terror, Penguin, Auckland.

Thorp, T. (1997) Review of Firearms Control in New Zealand: Report of an Independent Inquiry, commissioned by the Minister of Police, GP Print, Wellington.

Williams, P. (1997) A Passion for Justice, Shoal Bay Press, Christchurch.

Greg Newbold

Sociology Department University of Canterbury