“And I’m livin’ in black rainYou try to ban the A.K.,I got ten of ’em stashed with a case of hand grenades – Ice T Body Count.

The firearms buy-back comes to an end a month from today, but the police say the amnesty for returning banned guns will continue into next year and beyond. “That is music to the ears of gun owners, but they say the government should go further and extend the buy-back period as well”

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-shooting/117554483/banned-firearms-theres-effectively-a-permanent-amnesty

The buy back turning into a Monty Python styled farce (as many forecasts it would). Having spent 300 million on the gun amnesty the police announced There’s effectively a permanent amnesty,” police deputy commissioner Mike Clement said, and they hope to “extend” the buy back. This of course means the amount budgeted has proved inadequate as Jacinda Adern government was first advised by their own consultant at KMPG when they plucked the figure of 208 million out of the year verse the lobbyists estimated the buyback could cost between $700 m to $1 billion.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-shooting/113628781/government-gun-buyback-scheme-funding-boosted-to-208m-with-acc-money
https://www.scribd.com/document/420502502/Kpmg-Report-Firearms-Buy-Back-Pricing-June-2019#from_embed

Intimidation did not work so now the police will try bribery as the government own experts warned the amount spent on arms could balloon out of control under this scheme. Bilions will ultimately be spent around a strategy built to combat (with little chance of success) a once in forty year event. An event which when it happens double statistically in crass body count terms at 70 people killed each year or homicide rate of 1.6 per 100,000 (well below the OECD average of 3.6 per 100,000). Imagine if that money was spent instead on family violence (particularly intimate partner violence), child abuse, alcohol drug and suicide figures were we consistently outrank other developed countries in terms of population ratios.

http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/new-zealand/

Their are four things which illustrate how upside down, back to front, our response to March 15. Why in terms of mitigating and reducing further harms its being an absolute disaster and is literally not just a knee jerk reaction but rather a recipe of intent on how to fail spectacuarly they are;

1. The police confirm they have no idea how many guns are out there.

So like the War on Terror, The War on Drugs, this is just another bottomless pit cause. One in which we the public are expected to just keeping chucking money, with no means of knowing if this is succeeding or not. Or if the increased powers the police pick up along the way are actually working.

They won’t and you will be able to tell this by comparing the increasing family violence (particularly intimate partner violence), child abuse, alcohol drug and suicide figures as well as the increasing in poverty, wealth gap, education, drug rehabilitation. Issue which all go under reported, unfunded and un addressed.

The proof the buy backs have not made us a safe community. Despite all the money mispent as a result of disastrous policy triage courtesy of our police and politicians.

So much for ‘he aint heavy he’s my brother’.

• 

• 

• 

• 

2. The buy back has not worked in getting unlicensed guns off the street, as forecast by the shooting community, as admitted by the police that the target of guns retrived “falls well short”.

3. The police hope to “extend” the buy back “permanently” (and once again the public consultation on this decision is zero).

This means;

A; More money spent. With 73 million spent so far on huts the guns themselves (no figures released by the police or government on storage, collection, intelligence (cough) gathering, marketing (which clearly failed), administration, fuel or support cost (equipment for those involved in getting guns and raiding people homes), labor costs) police will keep asking for more money, more toys. Even though so far there and the parliament response has being unmitigated disaster, as fore cast, caused largely by their incompetence and dereliction of duty to begin with via


i. Intelligence failure of multiple red flags surrounding Brenton Tarrant.

ii. Failure to reign in sloppy operators like David Tipple Gun City or the few rogue but well reported gun clubs with American style toxic cultures (as opposed to New Zealand firearms culture whcih focus on hunting, conservation and agricultural needs).

Such as the one Brenton Tarrant belonged to. A club which not only used pictures of human on targets had members bring in weapons with fixed bayonet but was used by Dunedin police for training.

Whose toxic gun American style gun culture was reported to the police again on many occasions by shooters from other clubs and took place in the midst of rash of arms burglary in Dunedin conducted by the Bandidos on behalf of the Hells Angels who dominate New Zealand’s black market.

Burglaries initiated with the robbery of another police friendly Dunedin gun club with history of a toxic gun culture the Dunedin pistol club were unlocked safe saw weapons, 20,000 rounds, and the club registry of members with their address stolen.

That burglary took place two years after the Bandidos first arrived in Dunedin and attempt to make a presence in the Octagon as Police said gangs were not an issue and only hurt gangs (a reverse of their position now) and the mayor said he never went into the Octagon at night as he was too afraid too (now that a hell of an example of civic leadership.

My reporting on this issue in my paper DEADLINE taking place after I literary walked into Octagon crime spree on New Year’s Eve 2015 which saw me released from the cells, with a sorry about that, after I got reported for trying to report a crime unfolding in real time to a police officer more interested in bugging teenagers watching adults make fools of themselves.

A total of seven phone and wallets stolen right under the nose of the police by gangs working with local bar security staff. I warned in print the police failure to act on an out of control scene would result in death.

It took place six weeks before the death of man killed in an Octagon bar (one of three owned by a former police officer whose bars all have a high level of ‘red spot’ or reported violent incidents) in the Octagon by patched gang prospect Stephen Fernyhoug. The Octagon reputation for being a booze fulled swill fest is legendary and it a direct result of police licensing policy which aims to herd drinker into a high octane bottleneck with ‘six o’clock drinking swill’ controlled drinking hours. Controlled not for the purpose of public safety but rather to fit police roster and budgets needs and profiting a few.

Policing by calcuators – oh that going to work. Non problem bars get forced to shut early and probelm bars with a history of violence stay in bussiness. For thats how Dunedin home of the ‘tartan mafia’ rolls.

The mass brawl in July 2019 of gang member shows the police are still not touching the issue of gang violence stating back in 2015 the emergence of gangs like the Bandios was not an issue as gangs only attacked gangs — never mind the social impact of meth or the economic damage to money laundering. For contrary to the police and the academic expert and their donut eating trained view point gangs are impacting on civilians as recent homicide figure on firearms confirms. The police buys back is not addressing the actual issue.

The violence in July was the Mongrel Mob and come as rumor report the Dunedin council, who has previously tendered work out to both the Mongrel Mob and the Black Power has turned to these gangs to keep other gangs out of the Octagon for the benefit of tourists. Tender relationship most certainly can be confirmed. To be fair effort to reduce violence with both gangs had being genuine for the most part and the recent flair up relates to rather to an increase in surge of meth and poverty than lack of genuine intent on behalf of the two local gangs.

Poverty of course is not as sexy as guns and gangs, even though its long recognised root cause are far cheaper to address if you put an ambulance at the top of the hill not its bottom.

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/dcc-considering-contracts-gangs
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/bandidos-set-dunedin-chapter
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/crime/meth-and-bad-housing-fuelling-huge-spike-dunedin-family-violence

The burglary over seen by Detective Sergeant Kallum Kordis (a regular name you see when you read Independent (cough) Conduct Authority documents, Judge criticism of Dunedin police officers, and national inquiries into the toxic police culture that’s prolific in Dunedin) took place two years before a lock down of Otago University in Dunedin. A lock down triggered by messages left on Tarrant’s favourite social media forums (it even uses Aussie slang favored by white supremacists) following the attempted live stream of the Orlando University shooting.

An event which showed police and intelligence were most certainly aware of the very site Tarrant visited regularly which contradict their claims to date and proves yet another outright lie being told by the police. One of several to date. While a March 15 report by TV NZ Carol Robyn report (1;40) made on March 15th on the day of the shooting confirms a second social media threat of shooting of Muslim in Christchurch was also taken to police and promptly ignored.

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/inside-christchurchs-masjif-al-noor-mosque-site-horrific-terror-attack

See also https://postmanproductions.wordpress.com/2019/08/16/an-issue-of-timing/

4. An extended Buy Back will not get rid of guns rather it will fuel the blackmarket and drive prices up. As the Australian case demonstrates after it was found used weapons were imported to be sold at the amnesty. It not much of stretch of the imagination to see some one like David Tipple Gun City (whose cheap AR-15s flooded the streets and ended up inthe hands of gangs not hunters), seeing an opportunity to buy cheap over seas with aim of dumping them for profit in NZ.

Police admit they have no intelligence on where the weapons out there come from to begin with. Police also admit they have already encountered case of buy back scammers during the buy back process. Intelligence including growing witness accounts, primary documents submitted in submission hearings, and material buried in public archives continues to mount up to demonstrate just what a hash the police made in this massive intelligence fail. In fact, I would say in the best tones of gallows humor The police and Adern administration public relation is so abysmal it needs another March 15th event where they can, to quote Crisis X (the media training exercise held in Christchurch in March 2019 based around the scenario of a social medium inspire attack) “seize crisis from opportunity” all the while using the chaos to “suppress internal mutinies” caused by deviation from usal procedure.

Okay so that’s a tad dark but fact is the buy back killing Adern in the polls and if she to have any chance at being a two term PM (before exiting to become the worlds first female Secretary general (under the mentoring of Helen Clark) she need a bit of bad luck she that she and her dads copper mates can exploit. Mind you the police, with a bob (actually a Jamie Ross) each way I suppose the police can always do a deal with the equally hopeless National and the John Key clone Chris Lux ton they are preparing for 2023. You still dont think gross police incompetence or a Machiavellian political ambition is a factor think again;

As of 2019 more than 10,000 violent offenders hold gun license in New Zealand all having undergone rigorous (cough) police vetting.

ii A continued refusal to listen to the public and dive to subvert due process and the democratic process via rushed submission hearing, interfered with submission hearings, embedded police media reporting that seeks to demonize shooters (to be fair some self-appointed shooters have shown a poor understanding of how not to serve Adern and the police propaganda needs by sounding like mouthy redneck with a very small penis).

In other cases working upon basic economic’s of supply and demand the increased prohibition is now seeing a predictable rise in black market prices.

This combined with the importation of Australian prisoners ‘501s’, kicked out of Australia for violent offenses (including the six hundred the New Zealand police saw as fit to issue firearms licenses to) has also driven the black market fire arms offenses dramatically upwards. Meaning it makes more sense to spend 300 million plus (the price of the buy back) used for new mobile armed patrol to focus on six hundred people new to the country with undeveloped networks, in a comparatively small target zone, as opposed to the million plus lawful owners, located nationwide, happy to comply with same gun laws that in fact get policed like they were meant to have the police done their jobs. This is as opposed to the massive statistics of violent offenders issued with licenses which show that was simply not happening.

Okay that seems legit said no one ever.

Economically the police strategy, when you crunch the raw numbers, seems more about increasing their budget and political clout as opposed to being a realistic strategy focused on improving public safety and combatting firearms violence.

Its a policy which combined with an increased armed police force is turning New Zealand fire arms culture of conservation, food gathering and pesticide culling into the sick violent culture of the USA and that worked so well for the USA todate.

5. Then their the issue of police competency. In light of the number of weapons already higligheted as having being stolen from police locks up. Were they have ended up in the unregulated uncontrollable arms black market or likely to even be resold to the police at the buy backs.

That would never happen right?

In the Port Arthur case the alleged shooter in fact used weapons handed in Mr. Drysdale, who told the Tasmanian Police Port Arthur Taskforce, Inspector John Maxwell, that he was convinced that the rifle he had handed in at a previous amnesty was identical to that used in the massacre. His rifle had been valued by police and they gave him $1700 compensation. He told police that a mark on the barrel of the Port Arthur weapon described to him by Inspector Maxwell, matched a mark on his rifle made by his gunsmith. “My rifle also had a collapsible stock and a Colt sight, just as the massacre weapon has,” he said. “I did the right thing and handed the weapon in and if the police put it back into the Australian community I would be disgusted”.

A check of the serial number SP128807 confirms it was Drysdale AR-15 used in the Port Arthur massacre.

In Australia the existence of ‘old boys’ Police corruption is well documented.

In New Zealand its not officially acknowledged of course. For no one in the police or IPCA documents corruption statistics (so it must not exist right?). Becuase the IPCA which is not Independent at all, bar its name, unsurprisingly has ended up with tsunami history of doing nothing. For in the word of former Dunedin Police Deceive Peter Gibbons the IPCA not there to stop corruption but only to serve to “whitewash” and protect the police as they literally are allowed to police themselves — what could possibly go wrong.

It’s no secret at all that police corruption exist it even has a nick name ‘the mates club’.

And like the ‘mates club’ handling of Pike River, the numerous report of drunken after hour police antics, the interference in Louise Nichols and Justice Brazely inquiry, Roast Busters, it’s bent on getting an even stronger foot hold in New Zealand.

Fact is the buyback was not only a knee-jerk response to a terrible tragedy but it was used as a scape goat. It meant the police did not have too address their lack of accountability, their gross dereliction of duty documented by 10,000 violent offenders with gun licenses, their institutionalized incompetence, and their culture of nepotism, which all played a part in the March 15 Christchurch shooting and need to be laid at both the door of the police and their political mates on both side of the Parliament hall. And done in public transparent manner as opposed to yet another closed door inquiry where once more the state is sent to investigate itself and permitted to control the confines of the inquiry. March 15th the fire arm law changes and most importantly the increased police budget spending on arming the police and buying new exotic toys (as opposed to putting well-trained well-educated cops on the foot path) is nothing but flagrant demonstration of the ‘mates club’ seizing opportunity out of crisis to entrench their own power base and if that’s allowed to happen, goes unchallenged, it certain that homicide body count won’t go down and nor will crime decrease. Why would it? When we have just successfully witnessed the police become the king pins of crime and put their well armed bums firmly in the driving seat of organised crime.

The New Zealand Police or at least its ruling ‘mates club’ are heavy and they ain’t your brother.

https://www.change.org/p/the-hon-will-hodgman-mp-martin-bryant-deserves-a-lawful-coronial-inquest-and-for-all-our-sakes/u/15154686
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/403675/banned-firearms-there-s-effectively-a-permanent-amnesty