Luke Kirkness: This is the first step in restricting gun crime in New Zealand

OPINION:

The gun-buyback scheme by this Government was, is and always will be a contentious issue.

The ban included most semi-automatic firearms, some pump-action shotguns and certain large-capacity magazines.

The amnesty period, when people could hand firearms back, ended in August last year and figures released around that time showed police spent more than $2.4 million buying back just 768 guns, along with 240 pistol carbine conversion kits and 2160 accessories.

One of the most common criticisms is that it only managed to remove guns from law-abiding citizens while criminals held on to their weapons and that's true - but it's not that clear cut.

Those claiming that hunters and farmers are being punished by having these banned weapons taken off them are, in my view, wrong.

The gun-buyback scheme by this Government was, is and always will be a contentious issue. Photo / NZME

Anyone who has spent time as a hunter-gatherer will know wild game isn't going to stand there and get shot at round after round and if someone needs a semi-auto or a large magazine to bag their game should spend more time practising.

Many farmers have firearms too, for things such as pest control and putting down sick stock, but the arguments above stand here too.

Ordinary citizens weren't punished by the buy-back either. Last I checked, we aren't living in the Wild West where gunfights were common practice. When people have a problem, they call the police and rightly so.

There may be questions about the buy-back and how successful it was but it's not the problem here. Gangs are.

It is clear, in my opinion, that gangs are often the common denominator with gun crime.

Many gang members were and probably always will be armed as long as we enable these organisations.

Many gang members, not all, of course, break the law and many of these outfits are behind the distribution of drugs and other heinous crimes that take place in this country.

Why do we allow gangs to exist when clearly many of them do a great deal of harm to our communities?

And why do people lambast the police for the work they do to try and stop gun crime?

The work police are doing to get firearms off the street is important. It must be incredibly difficult and they've done a great job seizing nearly 900 firearms in the Bay of Plenty over a three-year period.

No matter how you look at it, the first step in solving gun crime, in my view, is to crack down on gangs.