New Zealand Police Raid Firearms Collector’s House and Take his Guns
Jose Nino
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A New Zealand gun collector’s guns were recently seized during a raid conducted by the police.
According to a report from Stuff.co.nz, the gun collector said that the police went “way over the top” when they raided his house to seize his 11 firearms.
This respected community figure asked to not be named for security reasons.
He claimed that 30 police raided his west Christchurch home on April 2 while he was busy at work.
The police that raided his house were Armed Offenders Squad members and some were in ordinary police uniform.
The distraught firearms collector said that law enforcement interacted with both his daughter and mother in shocking fashion.
They even went through her underwear drawer. The worst thing was they pointed a rifle at my 12-year-old daughter who was picking up horse poo. They told her to put the fork down and walk towards them. She is still anxious and shaken. The whole family is.
Police then called him while he was at work. He made arrangements to stand in the middle of his yard and have the police leave their guns in their vehicles.
The gun collector gave an account of his encounter with the police:
They still pointed their guns at me and made me walk towards them with my hands up. I got to them and said, “put that away before you hurt yourself”.
According to the gun collector, he thinks the police might have wanted to talk to him because of his purchase of an AR-15 rifle after the Christchurch Mosque shooting. The mosque shooter used an AR-15 style rifle which is now banned under New Zealand’s new gun control laws.
However, the gun collector is still waiting for an explanation from the police. The man does not believe police were acting on a tip that he was dangerous. Nevertheless, the police refused to make any comments citing privacy concerns.
A police spokesperson said, “Unfortunately for privacy reasons we can’t respond to requests which seek to confirm whether specific individuals have made complaints to police, or if police have attended a specific address.”
In the gun collector’s view, the number of police officers that came to his house was over the top and that a visit from a local police officer would have sufficed.
He concluded, “I can’t understand why they needed that many armed police to come in here to ask me my views on this and then seize my gun.”
In the aftermath of the New Zealand shooting, calls for gun control have re-ignited in the U.S.
Despite already having strict gun laws, New Zealand passed a new set of gun control measures after the Christchurch shooting.
Now, American politicians like Bernie Sanders want the U.S. to follow New Zealand’s example by banning so-called “assault weapons” and placing more restrictions on civilian gun ownership.
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