More than 180 guns have been handed into police in the first two days of a firearms buyback scheme in Te Puke. Photo / File
More than 180 guns have been handed into police in the first two days of a firearms buyback scheme in Te Puke. Photo / File
More than 100 people have already handed in 189 guns to police in the first two days of a firearms collection in Te Puke.
The three-day event at the Te Puke Sports Club began on Friday. It was part of the Government's amnesty and buyback scheme under the Arms (ProhibitedFirearms, Parts and Magazines) Amendment Act 2019. It ends today.
By the end of Saturday, 180 guns were bought back and another nine were handed in by 113 people. As part of the collection, 878 accessories or parts were bought back and another seven were handed in.
No one from the police was available for comment today but Bay of Plenty police district manager of operations support, Inspector Ed Van Den Broek, said on Friday everybody ended up leaving "reasonably happy, so that was good".
Van Den Broek said the Western Bay of Plenty had the largest amount of firearms licensees in the wider Bay of Plenty.
As well as the buyback element to the collection, the events were also part of the Government firearms' amnesty.
The collected weapons will not have far to travel because they will be shredded in Te Puke, which has one of just two of the country's plants being used to destroy surrendered weapons. The other is in Auckland.
The next Western Bay collection events will be in Tauranga at Baypark's stadium lounge between August 30 and September 1 and again between September 27 and 29.
