By EUGENE BINGHAM
Military-style semi-automatic guns will be phased out under a tough new regime likely to come within the control of an independent firearms authority.
The Government is committed to following through on gun registration legislation introduced under National, but also wants to extend the reforms.
Justice Minister Phil Goff and Police Minister George Hawkins are working on proposals to banish the high-powered weapons used in mass shootings here and in Australia.
They do not favour the instant ban and buy-back of weapons as recommended by the 1997 Thorp report, but instead are understood to support a "grandfathering" clause preventing owners from giving or selling the firearms to anyone but the Government.
There is already a ban on importing the guns.
And in a move to give more bite to looming gun registration laws, firearms control will be put in the hands of an independent authority, though police will still enforce the law.
Mr Goff said the Government believed the lack of a firearms register was "loose and unacceptable."
"I'm a firearms owner but under current restrictions, while I'm not meant to sell to anybody who doesn't have a licence, there are no practical means of saying how I dispose of any of my firearms."
Though the Government had decided to take over the Arms Amendment Bill introduced by National last year, the cabinet was yet to finalise how it would deal with military-style semi-automatics.
"As long as you have literally tens of thousands of such weapons in a community, there is always the ability that criminal elements will gain them by purchase or theft."
Asked about the independent authority, Mr Goff said police did a good job in registering firearms, but more urgent work sometimes took precedence.
National MP Brian Neeson said yesterday he would be watching for details of what the Government planned to do.
He was "uncomfortable" about plans for an independent authority.
But a Gunsafe spokesman and former policeman, Mike Meyrick, said firearms and licence databases would probably be better managed by a dedicated body.
As for semi-automatics, he could see no reason why anybody in New Zealand should own one. "They are made to kill people."
The executive director of the Council for Licensed Firearms Owners, John Howat, said the present gun laws were working and the Government should concentrate on hitting criminals.
Firearms in Govt sights
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