Guns: Join a club, get a licence

By KATE BELGRAVE

It is a .455-military-firearms-theme shoot this morning at the old Defence Ministry firing range at Ardmore. Members of the International Military Arms Society's Pistol and Rifle Club are having a typical morning — they're standing around in the freezing cold, patiently waiting their turns at target and praying that the club president doesn't accidentally shoot his foot off.

I jest, of course. The president, Alex Wong, is not normally a terrible shot. He's just a terrible shot today. Happens to us all. Right now, Wong is trying to perfect a move that the guys refer to as "El Presidente!" — a move they've cribbed from appalling westerns.

To perform a flawless El Presidente! you stick your loaded Webley in your holster and stand with your back towards three human-shaped cardboard targets.

When you're all set, another club member starts a timer and shrieks "El Presidente!"

This is your cue to spin 180 degrees, draw your weapon cleanly — this is the part that Wong is finding a challenge — and fire two rounds at the cardboard suckers in front of you. You're supposed to do it in one smooth move — you know, easy as Wyatt Earp rolling off a whore.

"Not my day," grins Wong as his brother Dave tallies up his score. He's right about that. Still, he does better than I do. They give me a Browning .22 semi-automatic that kicks so hard that I can't control it. I just squeeze my eyes shut and drill nice big holes in the clay hill behind the targets.

Even on bad days Wong's enthusiasm for firearms remains intact. He's not unusual in this. Far from it. He's one of thousands of harmless-looking, presumably normal, middle New Zealanders whose most enduring passion is owning and shooting guns.

About 222,000 New Zealanders hold an A-class firearms licence, the general firearms licence that allows holders to have or use sporting shotguns and rifles.

Wong is a computer consultant and an Act Party member as well as the grandson of a gun dealer, the founder of this club, and a long-time collector and shooter of beautiful, mostly original military fire-arms. He also has the rarer B, C and E endorsements on his licence.

The B endorsement (there are around 2400 B endorsement-holders in New Zealand) allows members of incorporated pistol clubs to own pistols.

The C endorsement (around 3200 holders) allows bona fide collectors to have restricted weapons. The E endorsement allows holders to keep military-style semi-automatic rifles and shotguns.

Wong has a collection of about 20 guns, including one of the classic, short-barrelled Mark IV revolvers that British officers used to lie around polishing while the Anzac infantry was sorting out Turkish machine-gunners.

Wong also has a range of standard-issue bolt-action war rifles and Smith and Wesson .38s. His military-style semi-automatic is an AR15.

He estimates that his collection is worth $15,000.

Like the rest of us here at Ardmore, he likes to believe that his interest has a certain cerebral aspect. "The historical angle is fascinating," he says. "I like comparing the differences. I have a selection of bolt-action rifles: an American one, a British one, a German one and a Russian one. They used different methods of bolt action. They all had different barrel lengths and different calibres."

In a way, the secret to a long-standing love affair with military firearms lies somewhere in that statement. It's something about the chill thrill you feel when reflecting on war's technical advances.

Club member Andrew Jollands, a personable type who doubles as the club's newsletter editor, touches on that aspect. His particular field of interest is Second World War American semi-automatics.

He can think outside that square, though. When he lived in Britain a few years ago he joined an outfit called something like the Historical Breech-Loading Association — he probably deserves a few points just for finding it.

Club member Ken McAlpine's interests increasingly lie with a sport called western action-shooting, a sort of live-action cowboy gig. And it's getting popular. For a western action-shoot, enthusiasts — sometimes entire families — dress up in Wild West gear and act out various scripted scenarios, such as shoot-outs and bank robberies. McAlpine's alias at these shoots is Smurphy Smith.

But back to today's military-weapon shoot and El Presidente! moves.

"Basically, we're trying to exercise the historical aspects of military weaponry," Wong says. "What we're really trying to do, though, is exercise the fun, over-the-top, B-western aspects of weaponry."

Each military-themed shoot means a lot of hiding behind things with your weapon, keeping your eyes peeled for baddies lurking in the grass, a sort of High Noon-meets-Platoon. It's all hilariously cheesy — or would be if you could forget that the gun in your hand is the genuine article, loaded, and has probably killed someone.

You're not going to kill anyone — safety is very strictly observed and anyone who fools around is out. It's just that you're aware that you could. You look at the sleek, icy lines of your handgun and you feel those six fat bullets warming in your hand and understand that you could make a big mess of some mother's son.

It's still pretty cheesy, though.

"El Presidente!" yells McAlpine.

Everyone grins.

Bang.

It seems relatively easy to get your general firearms licence in New Zealand. You don't have to sit any sort of practical test. The only test is a short, multi-choice theory exam held at the end of a compulsory firearms safety lecture.

The lecture is given by volunteer New Zealand Mountain Safety Council officers, a number of whom say they would like to see a practical test introduced.

In fact, they mention it at every opportunity. "You want people to demonstrate that they know what they're doing," says Doug Cresswell, one of the officers who gave me my theory test.

He favours the TAFE system introduced in South Australia — a system where polytechs give a basic theory and practical training course.

"We can only teach so much in a classroom," says fellow officer Peter Buckley. "Once they've sat their theory, people should go to a range and have practical tuition on how to handle, load, unload and shoot a rifle — tuition on safe handling techniques."

He says that there are definitely people who need practical pointers. "One guy who came to our lecture said he wanted a firearms licence so he could shoot sparrows that got into his glasshouse.

"Another guy was into collecting pinecones. He wanted his licence so he could shoot them out of a tree." Buckley has also met people who think it's all right to dry out wet ammo in ovens or microwaves. "Practical tuition would go a long way," he says.

Practical testing, though, is a touchy subject. Sergeant Denis Culverwell, the sergeant in charge of Auckland's firearms office, says a practical test would be impossible and that, anyway, most people who sit for a licence have been shooting for a while and know what they're doing.

Inspector Joe Green, the police manager of licensing and vetting based in Wellington, agrees. He reviewed New Zealand's method of firearms training at the beginning of last year — an investigation into a practical training component was one of the recommendations of the Thorp report — and concluded that a practical test was logistically impracticable.

"You had to decide what to test and what sort of firearms to test." (Buckley says if it were up to him he'd just test the most commonly used types of firearms: perhaps a semi-automatic, a bolt-action rifle, a lever-action and a pump-action shotgun.)

Green also considered that the Mountain Safety Council lecture adequately covered gun handling and that gun clubs did have strict safety standards.

He's right. The first six months of membership of a pistol club, for inst-ance, is probationary and during that time your safety technique and attitude are assessed. Only then can you apply for your B endorsement.

Gun policy researcher Philip Alpers says he agrees "with the Mountain Safety officers that practical training would be a good idea" but is generally "pretty relaxed about the procedure that we have to get a licence in New Zealand at the moment."

His beef lies with gun registration — the fact that A-category firearms don't have to be registered.

"We're one of the few Western democracies that doesn't have full registration." (The issue of firearms registration is presently before a select committee.)

Green says the effectiveness of the present licensing system is borne out by this country's "very, very low level of accidental shootings."

Last year, for example, there were 10 firearms accidents. One was fatal. (Green is probably right to say the figure is comparatively low. A 1995 Canadian Department of Justice comparison of accident rates showed New Zealand's accident rate to be less than both Australia and Canada's, even though New Zealand had the greater per capita civilian arsenal).

It's interesting to note, though, that about half the accidents here were caused by licence-holders — people who had been through the existing procedure.

That's the point Peter Buckley keeps coming back to. "There's just such a difference between what people know in theory and what they do in practice." It seems a simple point but it's demonst-rated several times during my Mountain Safety theory lecture.

For instance, at the beginning of the lecture the officers hand everyone a cocked but unloaded shotgun, barrel-first. (This is the only time you handle a firearm during testing.) Everyone happily takes the firearm, even though the barrel is pointing at them. Nobody even thinks of objecting.

The lecture consists mainly of stories about accidents that happened to people who theoretically knew better.

Some people were shot because others hadn't identified their targets prop-erly, others when the loaded gun in the back of the ute discharged clean through two sheets of metal.

Others were shot when accepting a gun barrel-first from someone they assumed knew what he was doing.

To get a general firearms licence in New Zealand, applicants begin by filling in a two-page form that asks for basic details.

Candidates must offer the names of two referees, say whether they have incurred non-molestation orders or have had any criminal convictions, and if they have had psychiatric treatment.

Then, if all is in order, they pay a $123.75 application fee.

Next there's a 30-minute police interview, which, Culverwell says, finds out what your interests are, what you intend to do with a firearm, where you intend to keep it and what your beliefs are in areas like the use of a firearm in self-defence. After that, your background is checked, your referees contacted, and your home inspected to ensure gun-storage facilities are satisfactory.

The last step is that Mountain Safety Arms Code lecture. They run candidates through what are known as the Seven Commandments of Shooting, seven fairly obvious standards, including: treat every firearm as loaded, always point firearms in a safe directi

on, and avoid alcohol and drugs when shooting. You are given a copy of the Arms Code, the gun world's version of the Road Code, to study before the lecture.

At the end of the lecture candidates sit the Arms Code theory test. They must score at least 28 out of 30 to pass.

Food for thought here: the theory test is so easy that I passed it first time, even though I'd never opened — let alone studied — a copy of the Arms Code in my life.