Firearms licensing

I've been through two firearms re-licensing interviews in the last couple of years, one as the applicant, one as the partner and both interviews have concerned me - done with two different interviewers.

Both came to our home, as they should, checked the security of firearms storage, etc., all ok there.

But both, when asked why they don't interview partners in private, said that police become like psychologists and they can tell what's really going on in a relationship between two people. I am not convinced. From the comments made to us by both older men, they likely have little idea of the nature of our relationship. (In this case I refer to positive and supportive aspects only, but the assumptions obviously being made by both men was that we are like the rest of the local culture in which we live, which we are very much not. This relationship is not based in the usual gender stereotypes and power differentials of most historical, and many current, heterosexual partnerships.)

Yesterday on the news was the court report about that hideous killing that had involved a police call to a house where a young woman was found in a distressed state but left there by the police, who decided there was not enough wrong to warrant intervention. She was later found dead in a drum at the back of that same house. The psychological awareness of that officer was obviously not tuned in on that day!

I think there ought to be separate correspondence sent to the referees of applicants, giving the contact details of the interviewer so that independent contact opportunities are made readily available at times not able to be connected by a potentially controlling applicant, in the case of a refusal. People are good actors when they need to be for their own safety and how can anyone doing a single visit to unknown individuals, be sure to pick up on "the vibe"?

Men in particular, often legal license holders, kill other people too often for this to be a system that is working flawlessly. I want to know, for example, that my neighbour has been freely able to express her own concern about her husband's off-the-wall behaviour before he gets his license back again, for her safety and ours!

What's your experience?

I have no problems with a stricter screening regime but the answer is much more basic than that. It's true that some murderers have legit firearms and are licensed and we should minimise that number any way we can. However, most firearm violence is committed by those who aren't authorised to have them. Funny how criminals disrespect the law.

So the basic answer is to remove as many criminals from society as possible. Not through incarceration or capital punishment but through a zero tolerance approach to crime and that starts at home. Fix that one wee problem and we would have a great society.

If only we knew how.

A zero tolerance of racism and inequity is probably the real answer to that larger question.

Ruth, your experience sounds quite different to mine - I've had a licence for over twenty years now, and both times when I renewed it (2018 & 2008) the interviewer spoke to me and my mother (whom I live with) separately...

Smudge, something that I think one of the things we are doing wrong as a society is failing to address small problems before they fester and grow into larger problems (sort petty offenders out and get them on the "straight and narrow" before they graduate to more serious offending) and another is setting people up to fail (eg released from prison without having been properly rehabilitated and educated, with no job, no accommodation and no "non-criminal" support network - why do you think our recidivism rate is so high?).

A bit off-topic, but I'll post this as an example of set up to fail: www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/crime/prison-...treme-cry-help-judge

My experience of the interviews, from both sides on several occasions, is that they have always been conducted separately.

It must just be because the Far North is completely free of family and other violence. Excellent.

There is no depression in New Zealand ...

My experience is also that my partner (the applicant) got sent out of the house when I was being interviewed.

So it sounds like that the Far North practices might need to be looked at. I totally agree that it is unacceptable to conduct the partner interview with the applicant in the room. Definitely unlikely to inspire the truth, should there be truths that need to be told.

My interview was with my wife and kids,SPARK - I think we're on the same wavelength

smudge wrote: My interview was with my wife and kids,SPARK - I think we're on the same wavelength

Same wavelength as Spark, or your wife and kids? The point is no interviewer should make any such assumption. They might only be wrong occasionally but it's sure going to matter to someone when they are!

I was interviewed separately Ruth when OH renewed ? his license several years ago... (we are under Counties Manukau area for firearms).

I've had my license 30 plus years.
All the interview-style renewals have been done with self and partner separated. The questions asked do seem to be mostly reasonable but I remember the first time around the officer was very surprised to find the license holder was female and he then had to ask all the 'do you feel safe' questions of a man. . .

Geba, a senior police officer once said to me, "Men beat their wives; wives shoot their husbands." Wonder if it was the same guy!