7
The Way Forward
Part 6 of the report suggested greater or lesser reforms in 19 separate areas of firearms control. In numbers of cases where reforms were proposed it was indicated that further information was needed, or at least desirable, before determining their timing and details. It is useful to consider next the factors limiting the scope of reform, and those which place limits on the timing of reform.
There are two factors which significantly limit the scope and potential benefit of legislated gun controls.
The first is that controlling "legal" guns, or guns held with lawful authority, can affect the size and use of the pool of "illegal" guns only indirectly. It would accordingly be misleading to propose any new arms control system without noting that early and dramatic reductions in gun crime cannot be expected. They have to be a long-term goal, which may not be fully achieved until means are found to reduce violence within our society.
That is not to say that nothing can be done, as is often
argued by those who oppose controls. Some reductions in the levels of gun crime can be expected from reforms which
encourage a more responsible attitude towards guns, which improve security standards and make it more difficult for criminals to obtain guns, and which (even if only occasionally) assist in the prevention or detection of gun crime. Rather it is a reminder that the aim of controls has to be reducing the risk of misuse, as they cannot eliminate it.The second is that successful gun control is not just a matter of amending the arms code. Other codes and practices will continue to limit the efficiency of any arms control system unless they also are amended. To give two examples, so long as the clearance rate for burglary remains at 16 percent, even the tighter security standards now proposed will have limited effect; and until the health system is able to provide assistance for those whose absence of mental health calls for it, arms control must be one of the losers.
Factors bearing on the timing of reforms� what can and what cannot be done in the immediate future� are more numerous.
The first is the present absence of relevant information, a point made time and again in this report because of the dominant significance it attained in so many aspects of the investigation.
The second is the need to establish a firm base from which to move forward. The re-licensing programme which commenced in 1993 still has one tranche of call-in notices to be sent out, to those licensees with the surname initials T to Z. That call-in is to be made on 1 July 1997. The notices will call upon recipients who wish to re-licence to do so within six months, that is by the end of 1997, failing which their 1983-style licences may be revoked. Past batches have produced 40 percent of re-applications within nine months and 50 percent within 18 months, but in the past only very limited action was taken to follow up non-responders. As yet virtually no revocations have been made on the grounds of failure to make timely responses.
It is essential that active steps be taken to complete the 1992 re-licensing exercise as soon as practicable and thereby get all licences on one basis. Moving from the 1992 licensing system to another will be sufficiently complex. Moving from a mixture of 1983- and 1992-style licences, with an undetermined but substantial number of 1983 licences unaccounted for, would be much more difficult. In addition to the standard call-in notices, clear public notice should be given that not only the last tranche of 1983 licensees, but any other 1983 licensees who wish to remain licensed, must apply to be re-licensed by a stated date, failing which their former licences will be revoked.
Some time should be allowed to process further applications. If the last date for late applications were made 31 March 1998, revocation could be effected in respect of non-responders on 30 June 1998. When that is done a reasonably accurate count of licensees will be possible, for the first time since 1985.
Some saving provisions will need to be inserted for two classes of people:
Ÿ A group who applied for and were issued licences under Project Foresight, but whose names were not entered in the Wanganui computer because staff contracted to make the appropriate data entries did not do so. The fact that significant numbers were not included in the licence register is known, but not the size of that group.
Ÿ Those who did re-licence under the 1983 Act, but in respect of whom the 1983 register and supplementary inquiries did not provide useable name and address details for 1992 call-in notices.
As both groups will not have received call-in notices, legislation which authorises any new system should reserve to them the right to apply within a limited time for reinstatement of their licences.
A third factor affecting timing is that successful long-term reform will require a change in attitudes towards guns, both by shooters and by the public at large, and changing attitudes requires more time than is necessary to formulate and enact legislation.
A clear majority of shooters have expressed concern that they might be asked to pay "yet again for yet another system". If they are to be convinced of the need to accept and play their part in a new system, one which clearly would involve closer supervision than in the past, the State should consider accepting the capital cost of reconstruction, and present licensees should be given an opportunity to be heard upon it. That last requirement may also call for some delay in finalising a new programme.
It is also clear that numbers of areas which should be amenable to reform would be assisted by knowledge of the results of current overseas endeavours to achieve a similar result.
The necessity to complete the 1992 Relicensing Project would on its own defer the introduction of a new system to mid-1998. If the other time factors are brought into account, the earliest appropriate starting date for a new system must be 1999. It is worth noting that the Canadian reforms, which have been under consideration for over two years, will not be wholly operative until 2003. They required a lead-in period of eight years.
From that point it is useful to try to identify those advances which ought to be attainable in the medium term, say the next five years, and then consider what programme would be best suited to achieve those advances.
Such an inquiry leads in my view inevitably to the conclusion that the opportunities for progress considered in part 6 will be realised only if the reform process is controlled by people with appropriate management and technical skills, who bring fresh minds to the many difficult problems, and are able to apply their skills and energies to resolving those problems free from the pressures of competing loyalties.
What New Zealand presently has is not a system of "firearms control" so much as a system which tries to limit the granting and retention of firearms licences to persons fit to have them. If it wishes to develop controls over firearms it will need first to get the basic information about firearms, firearm crime, firearm suicides and firearm accidents, in sufficient quantity and quality to ensure that any new systems do meet our needs, and to enable amendment of those systems from time to time when changes in usage and other relevant circumstances make that appropriate.
If a Firearms Authority is set up by the end of this year, either on a permanent basis or with a five-year sunset clause, it would not be unrealistic to expect that by the end of 1998 it should have obtained considerably better information on such issues as:
Ÿ gun ownership (licensed and unlicensed);
Ÿ gun use;
Ÿ degrees of compliance with security conditions;
Ÿ gun-related crime; and
Ÿ gun suicides and accidents.
Other information, as for example the sources of guns used in crime, could and should be collected. But without sound information on those five basic matters, none of which was initially available for the purposes of this Review, and much of which is now available only in the form of "best fit" estimates, the prospects of getting a new system right must be greatly reduced.
By contrast, if such information were regularly collected and assessed it could provide a basis both for settling a new system, and for advising in annual reports how far the new initiatives are succeeding.
Certainly by the end of its fourth year the Authority could reasonably be expected to report not only on the state of the country’s armoury and any significant changes in gun use and misuse over that period, but also to express an informed view upon the best means of ensuring continued development of gun controls. If that expectation could be realised, the difference in terms of the information available to government on which to determine firearms policy would indeed be dramatic.
On the information presently available an appropriate programme for the immediate future would include:
Ÿ establishing this year a Firearms Authority, either with a five-year sunset clause or on a permanent basis, to oversee a staged programme of reforms;
Ÿ completing the 1992 Relicensing Project by 30 June 1998;
Ÿ declaring a general amnesty for a period of 12 months;
Ÿ deciding on the extent and terms of any buy-back and authorising the new authority to manage that; and
Ÿ directing the Authority to assist in the drafting of new legislation based upon the Review’s recommendations.
If the preferred option for the implementation of the reforms is an implementation authority with a sunset clause, it should be given notice that it will be expected, at least 12 months before the expiry of its term, to recommend the most appropriate means of ensuring that further development of arms control is not again affected by the competition of other police business.
28.1 That the present Relicensing Project be completed and the number of 1992 licences be settled by revocation of those 1983 licenses where there is continuing non-compliance with call-in notices, by 30 June 1998.
28.2 That the proposed Firearms Authority be established as soon as practicable and not later than 31 December 1997.
28.3 That a general amnesty be declared for a period of 12 months commencing at the earliest convenient date.
28.4 That the extent and terms of any buy-back be decided and the Firearms Authority be authorised to manage it.
28.5 That the Firearms Authority be directed to assist in the drafting of a new Firearms Act based on the recommendations of this Review by 31 December 1998 with the intention of bringing the new Act into force by 1 July 1999.
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