Latte Set Making The Firearms Rules In Secret

act-new-zealand

Mon Jun 23 2003 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Latte Set Making The Firearms Rules In Secret

Monday, 23 June 2003, 8:56 am
Press Release: ACT New Zealand

ACT New Zealand Justice Spokesman Stephen Franks on Friday night accused Police Minister George Hawkins for waiting for a suitably newsworthy firearms crime to launch a new attempt to force firearms registration on the police and law-abiding gun owners.

"The Government will want to extract the maximum political benefit by announcing it as a response to some sad crime. The proposed gun registration scheme has no purpose other than eventual firearm confiscation. There is no other reason why a rational government would risk trashing a uniquely co-operative relationship between the Police and law-abiding firearms owners," Mr Franks said.

"The Labour Cabinet wants a high profile even to make it harder for the facts to be heard in the sympathy that follows a tragedy. Labour wants sporting shooters to be seen as hard and nasty when they challenge the Cabinet plan.

"This move will be excused as necessary, to allow the Government to sign up to the UN Protocol Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components, and Ammunition. Most countries will ignore this agreement - including those which sign it.

"The protocol will demand criminalisation for the thousands who save costs by reloading their own ammunition, when they take out manufacturers licences.

"Labour is about to tell us that we must destroy the trust and co-operation of hundreds of thousands of loyal and decent New Zealanders, by putting in place all the steps necessary to allow the latte set to confiscate the firearms of those they despise as rural oafs.

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"That has to be the ultimate aim. Fear of confiscation is not seeing ghosts. The desire to end hunting is there. Think of the urban hostility to hunting that has grown out of Britain's reverse snobbery. Ancient class enmity has meant that fox hunting has been banned, however incredibly unlikely that may have seemed only 15 years ago. In New Zealand, there are votes to be won by making shooting sports people squeal for the delight of the latte set. This is primitive class antagonism."

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