A DANGEROUS WEAPON.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIV, Issue 170, 26 July 1910, Page 4

A DANGEROUS WEAPON.

Every year the conference of the Acclimatisation Societies of New Zealand is called on to discuss the question of what is rightly called ' 'the deadly pea-rifle," and every year arguments are brought forward in favor of and against the \ise of this weapon by boys. At last week's conference the following remit from the Taranaki Society was moved: — "That the attention of the Government be directed, to the increasing number of casualties arising from the indiscriminate use, of pea-rifles and other firearms, and that it be a recommendation that legislation be introduced providing for a gun tax or license." The mover of the motion instanced the difficulty which.the Society's rangers; experienced in catching poachers, using pea-rifles, as the sound made by these, firearms was so very slifh't;1 The danger to human life, he added, was represented by the weekly toll of casualties. Another delegate (Mr J. A. Hanan, M.P., of Invercargill), said that from the standpoint of both casualties and the destruction of native game the; pea-rifle nuisance should be checked. The rarity of native game was, he said, largely due to the deadlmess of the pea-rifle. Mr P. J. O'Regan, who represented the Buller district, said that it was not the pea-rifle that destroyed' the native game. The damage it was infinitesimal compared with the havoc ' wrought by the stoats and weasels introduced by a few, sheepfarmers. Again', there was another side to the question. _ There were any amount of rabbits in close proximity to Wellington City. Lots of boys went out on every available day to the places 'infested by rabbits, with the full permission of owners of property to decimate the rabbits. If these boys, most of them poor enough, were asked to take out k gun license and pay a fee, they could not do it. Legislation would only offer inducements to break it. The small boy was being encouraged by, everybody nowadays from the highest to the lowest to shoot, and he was learning to do this in the most innocent of amusements. Thy mischief the small boy did was a mere trifle compared with the ravages of the stoats and weasels. Eventually the original motion was withdrawn, and the following carried, with a few dissentient voices: "That whereas grave danger to life and property and undue destruction of native and other game are involved in the prevailing indiscriminate use of pearifles, this conference affirms the desirability of placing the use of these weapons under further legislative control." No one who reads in the daily newspapers the all too frequent accounts of casualties and fatalities caused by the accidental discharge of pea-rifles, carelessly handled or carelessly left loaded, will deny that it is high time that some drastic steps were taken to place these dangerous weapons beyond the reach of little boys—and even big boys, for that matter. It is all very well for Mr O'Regan to defend the pea-rifle boy on the ground that he is learning to shoot "in the most innocent of amusements," and is doing good service to property-owners by "decimating the rabbits." In the interests of public safety these boys should be taught to shoot tinder proper instruction—in the cadet corps—and the owners of property should devise other means of ridding their lands of the rabbit' pest. No stronger argument against the pea-rifle need be brought than the sad fatality which happened near Hokitika on Friday evening, when a little girl was killed by a boy nine years old who was playfully handling a weapon which had been left standing behind a door in his parents' house. This boy, his parents, and the parents of the unfortunate little girl will curse the pea-rifle all their days, and this accident should serve as a warning to every New Zealand boy to leave this instrument of death, severely alone..