The history of New Zealand’s gun control law is dominated by failure. Failure of gun owners to comply with the laws, failure of police and courts to enforce and uphold them, and most importantly the failure of successive Governments to provide the will and the resources to see the laws through.

The headline-grabbing effect of the illegal “crime gun” guarantees it more attention than the lawful, homely firearms which kill nine-tenths of shooting victims. Accordingly, public opinion seems willing to tackle the problem of guns in crime while little attention is paid to the much more common “sporting gun” stored, seemingly harmlessly, in sports shops, on...

By opposing mandatory seizure of firearms following a protection order, police and some legislators seem inclined to deny the reality of gun-related violence as revealed by their own files.

Aim: To determine the firearms licensing status and mental and criminal history of perpetrators in firearm homicide, plus the legal status of the firearms used. The location of the shooting, its motivation and the relationship between perpetrator and victim were determined, as well as the type, ownership, origin and security storage of the firearms involved.