ILLEGAL ARMS ARE SUBJECT OF CONCERN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 58, 28 February 1949, Page 5

ILLEGAL ARMS ARE SUBJECT OF CONCERN

Suggestion From Town Businessmen

Following full discussion on its sub-committee’s report on the Firearms Regulations, the Whakatane Chamber of Commerce on Thursday night adopted the report, and instructed the executive to frame a resolution drawing the attention of the appropriate authorities to the following paragraph referring to the illegal ownership of arms: “There appears to be a plentiful supply of these available. They are chiefly weapons brought originally from overseas by Servicemen as souvenirs. We are of the opinion that a regulation should be drawn up to 'give immunity from prosecution for a period of three months, during which time all unregistered arms should be either registered with the police or, if not wanted, handed in to the police. At the expiration of this three months’ immunity we would like to see a heavy penalty, possibly with imprisonment added, imposed on all holders of illegal weapons found after the final date; this penalty to apply to all holders of illegal ammunition.” The rest of the report is quoted below:

“Generally speaking, the regulations relating to the supply of ammunition appears to be quite good. It would appear that .22 and .303 are easy to obtain, whilst other calibres would appear very difficult, if not impossible. The local dealers have each an ammunition register which is regularly inspected by the police, and this would also appear satisfactory. A complaint received from the dealers is that some customers refuse to sign for .22 ammunition, stating that they can procure same elsewhere without signing the book. What their objection is to signing the book seems 'obscure. We think this matter should be looked into as there may be a leakage here which could well be investigated by the police. “Another point that has appeared from our investigation is that, at the moment, anybody can procure ammunition by just signing the. book whether known to the dealer or not. It would be possible to sign any name whether the right one or not, and get ammunition. We are of the opinion that both the dealer and the police would welcome an alteration here.

“From the dealer’s point of view, we think they would welcome a regulation whereby in cases where the customer is unknown to them, a police permit should first be obtained. Any bone fide customer should not have any objection to this, and we think it would give general satisfaction and tighten up this dangerous loophole. “The Supply Arms Regulations appear to -be good. We understand that .303 rifles cannot be obtained unless satisfactory safeguards are complied with. The -22 also requires a permit before being supplied, and must be registered. Shot guns ar§ not subject to this regulation, and this also applies to shot gun ammunition. The Sub-Committee would prefer not to comment on this subject.” '