Myths and Misconceptions: Firearms and Firearm Owners

1. Dealing with the myths in order, the first one, that all offenders who use firearms are licensed for firearms, is generally untrue. However, it is difficult to prove because when an offender is arrested for a firearm offence, it is rare for a note to be taken of his/her licence status because they are usually charged with more serious offences (such as those against the Crimes Act).  Generally, offences which have more severe penalties are seen as being ‘more serious’ than those with lesser penalties.  So, the question of the licence status of an offender is rarely uncovered.
   
   
2. The second myth, that all firearms (particularly those used in crime) are semi-automatic is also untrue, but again, the fourth estate is inclined to label things which it does not understand, choosing to call all firearms “guns”. The threat posed by even a single shot is sufficient to ensure universal alarm, and the hype associated with the capability of firing repeated shots simply compounds the potential for fear and horror.
   
   
3. The third myth, that semi-automatic firearms are quite new, is also untrue. Semi-automatic firearms were first perfected by Ferdinand von Ritter Mannlicher in 1885, and his rifle and pistol designs were intended for commercial markets, not initially for military use.  Military interest in semi-automatic firearms tended to dwell upon pistols, not rifles, although the Mexican Mondragon rifle of 1907 saw limited use by the Germans in aerial warfare during the First World War.  Semi-automatic rifles were not widely adopted until after the Second World War (Hogg, 1983; Waterman, 1979).
   
   

4. The fourth myth, that of the colour of a firearm indicating or relating to its potential for use, misuse or danger is as dubious as much as the colour of clothing or of a motor vehicle can be argued to be at all indicative of the potential for its users for misbehaviour. “Black guns” is a journalistic ploy used by the fourth estate for suggesting condemnation of 'nasty' goods.  Early synthetic materials used in firearms of the 1950s (‘plastic”) were often in dark or dull colours to minimise their visibility when deployed.

5. The fifth myth, that users of semi-automatic firearms may be misfits is at best questionable just as drivers of motor vehicles with automatic transmissions might have been linked with such anti-social attributes since the arrival of automatic transmissions in the 1930s. People tend to use systems which are available because they can, and self-loading firearms, which have been on the market for more than a century are no exception.

6. An attraction of full firearm registration, the sixth myth, a method for the prevention of firearm-armed crime is the illusion of control which it supplies to the largely non-firearm-owning public. It is almost never of any use in preventing crimes even when the firearms involved were registered before their theft (New Zealand Police, 1982).  In practice, the police are nearly always able to secure a conviction against an offender without needing the firearm, or even details of it (New Zealand Police, 2020).

7. The seventh myth, that full firearm registration will solve crime, is not supported by the police, who have long been able to resolve crime and offending without the use of a viable register (New Zealand Police, 1982; New Zealand Police, 2020). Even a firearm left at the crime scene, unless witnessed as having been seen to be used, or otherwise linked to the offence, is of little value for “solving” a crime, particularly relating it to an individual (human) offender because of the need to ensure continuity of possession as part of the chain of evidence.

8. The eighth myth, that licensed firearm owners routinely sell their firearms to those not licensed for them, is disproven by the very small number of prosecutions for those charged with making such sales, less than 10 per year. Hardly any licensed firearm owners would wish to jeopardise their firearm licence by such unwise activities.

In theory, such knowledge empowers the authorities to 'keep track' of the firearms held by their owners.  This it is stated, will prevent licensed owners from selling their firearms to those not licensed to have them.  While it is known that some licensed owners have disposed of their firearms unlawfully, these people number less than 10 annually, (New Zealand Police, 2021).

9. The ninth myth, that police have extensive knowledge about firearms and about firearm laws is spotty; some of them may know a lot about firearms, but few are likely to be aware of the variations among more than a few firearms. Equally, recent changes to the arms law have introduced many complexities which are likely to be challenging to professionals like lawyers, and even experienced police are finding difficulty with interpreting and enforcing them.

10. The tenth myth, to the effect that extensive police databases about firearms exist, is given the lie when recent explorations of newly established police databases about firearms show the data contained in them is variable, sporadically gathered and not always of any use. Officially collected statistics, mostly about offending, although available in greater detail than before, cannot reliably be compared with earlier data because of changes in data collection methods and in data processing protocols.  All of these sharply reduce the value of any ‘information databases’ held by our police.  The possibility of their being ‘hacked’ cannot be discounted either.

11. The eleventh myth, where police claim that they badly need a firearm registration system to help them when less than 2% of violence involves firearms, brings into question about how they solve the other 98% of violence which does not involve firearms. Their suggestion that a registration system is needed to prevent the conversion of lawfully held firearms into illicit firearms is not supported by the finding that the police cannot state with certainty the source of more than 80% of the firearms seized during their operations.

12. The twelfth myth suggests that licensed firearm owners are more inclined to take risks than non-firearm owners. This has not been supported by recent research. Participants in a survey in 2019 were asked to choose from a range of potential gains or losses on the basis of hypothetical coin tosses.  The more than 3,000 participants showed that in 75.2% of licenced firearm owners (versus 64.1% of non-firearm owners) preferred the ‘safe option’, foregoing a hypothetical $8 to be gained by choosing other options, all of which carried risk of loss should the coin toss go against them.  (This obviously has implications for insurance cover and for ACC work-related injury claims).