New Zealand government takes away right to own guns from individuals for political beliefs

New Zealand government takes away right to own guns from individuals for political beliefs

A common 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.

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.

Sovereign citizens have found fertile ground in New Zealand, given a boost by the country's harsh COVID-era restrictions.

The "Sovereign Citizens" movement is almost a little bit like the counterpart on the Right to the "Anarchist" movement on the Left. They believe in "inviolable individual rights", but often have very wacky legal theories.

"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. In most instances, no charges were laid in respect of a revocation process."

According to the New Zealand Firearms Safety Authority website, there is 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", of course, can often be very subjective and in the eye of the beholder. Politicians find it 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.

While most Americans don't need licenses to own firearms, and 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' [New Zealanders] 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.

Concerning 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.​

New Zealand Government Punishes Gun Owners for Their Political Beliefs, by J.D. Tuccille, Reason (magazine), October 25, 2024


Related thread: UK gun owner loses licenses because of internet presence (posted in 'Gun Control', May 2, 2019 )

 

if you injected truth serum into most of the US anti gunners-they would admit they want to disarm anyone who isn't a leftist

 

They would disarm everyone, eventually.

 

which is why patriotic freedom loving Americans must never give an inch to that scum

 

Taking guns away from loonies might just be nipping a problem in the bud.

You guys should try that one day....

 

gun banners are all about disarming honest citizens but they don't really have much desire to actually enforce the laws on the books that already ban those adjudicated mentally incompetent from possessing firearms. when the GOP and the NRA pushed for a program that sent felons caught with firearms to the US Attorneys' offices for federal (tougher sentences) prosecution-guess what? leftwing organs such as the NAACP, ACLU, and several prominent Democrat leaders and state Democrat parties complained because guess what-many of those felons (and their victims) were black.

Democrat gun control is not about crime control

 

Democrat prosecutors won't do it

 

the devil in the detail is who is a loony?
to me-someone ADJUDICATED to be mentally incompetent -after a hearing where their substantive and procedural due process rights have been safeguarded. To gun banners-loony often is anyone who wants to own a gun for hunting or self defense

 

Supposedly it is against federal law to have a gun registry. Supposedly when you purchase a gun and complete the background check paperwork..... There is not supposed to be a federal record of people who were approved for purchase.

That is straight up BS. The ATF has proven time and again that they know exactly what guns people own.

People try to say that registration won't lead to confiscation... More BS.

Look at the countries where they run around and take people's guns..... How utterly convenient that the government knows who owns the guns.

 

That's problematic, because in the context of democracy, 'loonies' is just a less kind word for minorities. There is no functional difference.

 

Lols! These arsewipes think that the law does not apply to them because they have declared themselves “non-citizens”

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail...g-councils-up-with-rates-refusal-and-red-tape

They don’t even want to pay rates! OK - you don’t want to be a citizen of the country then you don’t get the privileges that come with that either!

Looked at a less biased source

https://www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/...-lose-their-firearms-licences-intelligence-op

Sooooo, this is about POLICE SAFETY! Don’t you think the police have a right to be safe?

 

Yeah! There is! Would you be concerned if instead of it being “sovereign citizens” they were, say, members of Los Zetas?

 

Ummm did you miss the bit where it said NEW ZEALAND? Last I looked our Kiwi neighbours were not part of America

 

I would be amused.

"Los Zetas (pronounced [los ˈsetas], Spanish for "The Zs") is a Mexican criminal syndicate, known as one of the most dangerous of Mexico's drug cartels.[17][18][19][20][21] They are known for engaging in brutally violent "shock and awe" tactics such as beheadings, torture, and indiscriminate murder.[22] While primarily concerned with drug trafficking, the organization also ran profitable sex and gun rackets."

I'm fully on board with imprisoning anyone who engages in "beheadings, torture, and indiscriminate murder" (none of which are tendencies for Sovereign Citizens, btw), and it seems perfectly logical and reasonably enforceable to ban guns for people in prison.

...but if you think you can stop an international criminal cartel that traffics illegal guns from getting guns by making it illegal, then I'm concerned for you.

 

I have a different idea. And though I am essentially pro-gun, my comrades probably won't like it unless they can understand it fully; make sure all gun owners are sane in the first place.

I think actually where my pro-gun friends will start to have a problem with that is when they ask how. How is indeed the problem. But there are ways. For starters, bring back gun clubs in schools. It all begins with teachers and parents identifying the young people that are sane and those that are "problems" and creating a record. The problem kids are kept from guns by everybody with any authority over them.

When they become adults they have to join a local militia to have a gun....this involves a long forgotten sort of establishment I like to call "community". All gun purchases will be done anonymously through the militia. If no militia will take you, you get no gun. I could go on.

But community is key...not government. The government can make laws to empower the community though. Even something like what Switzerland has would be very good for America. They have proper gun culture embeded in their communities. Too many places in America lost that and the results were predictable.

Bringing this back to N.Z. they too should be thinking of such solutions instead of neutering their men folk when it comes to martial skill and the knowledge of firearms that only comes through ownership and lots of practice, esp. at an early age.

 

And last I looked you're not either so I don't know how January the 6th affected your life.

The point is, every country that went around taking people's guns had a registry where the government conveniently knew who those gun owners were.

 

Yeah we a,so have car registrations, birth registrations pet registrations and your point is??

 

I cannot speak for FatBack, but, I have to ask you where are the car, birth, and pet controversies?

If there were talk of taking everyone's first born son, or if it had been a common thing in history, you can bet people would revolt against birth registrations. Same thing with pet registrations. Or even cars.

The thing about guns is, I cannot think of a single nation that won its independence or kept it by waving registered flowers around. Nope, it was always deadly weapons. Even India only got its independence by agreeing to fight in WW2, as much as people like to pretend Ghandi got that through peaceful resistance alone. Nope, they had to shoot people too, just not the people you would have expected. Switzerland? Full of guns. Ireland? Decades of violence. France? Had to behead their monarchy.

The relative long peace we have in many nations today is a complete anomaly in all of human history. Don't expect it to last. History is chock full of people taken by utter surprise when the need for a solid weapon in their hand came around again.

Its not that I like any of this. I don't. I hate it. I wish people would just mind their own business and leave people alone. But history show there is always a monster somewhere who can get masses of people to murder, oppress, and steal, and none of that ever stops because somebody held their hands up and said "Please!"

 

Okay view from the great Southern land (the one next door to NZ).

Car - here in NSW you have to get a roadworthy yearly or you cannot reregister your vehicle. You can bet that can be an issue. Pets - we are not allowed to import some pets or for that matter export some. Now THAT caused a stink when we seized and quarantined some high profile pets https://www.theguardian.com/film/20...he-couldnt-take-pets-to-australia-court-hears. We get this often but our regs are strict for a reason - on the other hand if anyone wants to smuggle either a rabbit or a cane toad out of the country we will help

But add to that pet registration is mandatory and can be expensive so not unknown for the owner to be fined. Plus if say your beloved poochie is found worrying sheep they can trace that back to you and guess who gets fined/court order

https://www.lifestyleinjurylaw.com....ere a,owner under Queensland's criminal codes.
which is no real different from if your gun is used to harm someone

Now as for Switzerland and guns -please don’t tell me you believe the NRA myths about that do you?

 

Meh! I am not so defeatist

 

Because it's none of the government's damn business what we own and supposedly we have laws against registration being kept by the government.

Unlike down under, there are still Americans who do not think we should live in a nanny state for our "safety".

Can you think of a more controlled environment than a prison? Even there the government cannot guarantee anyone safety, so why the hell would I want my government to try to guarantee my safety anywhere on this Earth?

 

I feel that, since the US is unique, with a distinct and unique gun culture, you need unique gun solutions. But it's good to get ideas from other countries.

Perhaps GOP should bring in registration for guns. Then it wouldn't be a liberal thing.

 

But you DO have car registration? Pet registration! Birth registration? See it is about responsibility and being held accountable for your actions

 

I'd disagree when you'd care more about lunatic militant anti-democracy activists, as long as they are armed than your own school children who get killed by the hundreds every year.

 

Yes. Then it can be done THEIR way, and they are probably the ones who could at least start it out right.

It seems the main problem is everyone getting hung up on the idea it has to be handed down from the federal government or even state governments when it doesn't really. It could totally be mandated to be a local affair, just like any militia can be a local affair and totally in line with the U.S. Constitution.

The Fed could give us a framework, then from there, keep out of it.