New Zealand Government Refuses to Pay Promised Price for Banned Weapons Turn-In

In a glaring display of disdain for the gun-owning public, or in this case the former gun-owning public, the New Zealand government is refusing to pay the full, promised price for the firearms that citizens have turned in after the Christ Church shooting shocked the island nation.

According to the New Zealand Herald, the Council of Licensed Firearms Owners released a statement saying, “Some of the offered prices for higher-end firearms are well out of kilter. We’re talking about thousands of dollars.”

The spokesperson went on to say that in many cases the prices the government is offering are so low that citizens are refusing to comply with the mandatory buyback altogether.

The CLFO continued, “It may get down to a point where we have to look at court action on behalf of our members, and that is something we will be looking at under advice from our lawyers.”

Five days after the horrific events that took place at Christ Church, citizens of New Zealand were told that a mandatory buyback would be implemented. The target of the buyback would be rifles similar in form and function to the one used in the shooting: semi-automatic rifles.

The government later revealed that pump shotguns were also being added to the ban. Then, a short time later, citizens were told that any magazines designed to contain more than ten rounds were also being added to the ban.

After a later revision, the ban was expanded to include hundreds of types of weapons. The price list includes four condition categories, which are: Base Price, New or Near New, Used, and Poor.

An AR-15 manufactured by NFA brand, for example, has a base price of $1500. The same gun in near new condition would be purchased for $1425. A “used” version of the same gun would fetch $1050, and if in poor condition would be considered worth just $375.

Not surprisingly, in a vast majority of cases, turned-in guns have been valued at a category level lower than the owner is willing to accept. This is to be expected with a mandatory buyback situation.

In any normal exchange, the parties have to reach a mutual agreement before a transaction can be completed. But when the government says you have to sell them your guns, or else, they’ll use the guns they already have to come and take yours– then negotiations go out the window.

For a forced government buyback to even approach legitimacy, the government must take on an excess of the financial burden. They should be forced to pay at least 90 percent of the cost of the gun. There should be no negotiating.

New Zealand gun owners are protesting that the government is not paying them the true and full value of the guns they are being coerced into turning over. The promised buy-back rate was 95 percent of the off the shelf value of the guns. But citizens are saying that they have been given only 70 percent of the value of their semi-automatic weapons.

For weapons that cost on average between $2,000 and $10,000 a piece, this represents a loss of several hundred to several thousand dollars. This amounts to a fine just for owning a device similar to one that was used to commit a crime.

But New Zealand is not the United States. Here in the U.S., we are supposed to be a self-governing people. If any mandatory buyback were to happen here, it cannot even approach being legitimate without placing the government at a significant loss for the guns they want to take. They should not have the option to negotiate or to arbitrarily drop the price of the guns they want to take.

What’s more, they should be required to destroy any guns they acquire in a buyback. They should not have the option of using the guns themselves or selling the guns later to some revolutionary force in South America, the Middle East, or anywhere else.

Only if these standards were upheld, could a mandatory buyback even come near to being legitimate in the U.S. But even still, such a buyback would be a violation of the Constitutional protection of our natural right to possess and carry weapons.

Let us take this as a warning. Governments do not like to deal fairly with citizens. Here in the U.S, we are meant to have protection against the government. But no such protection can stand if the people are not willing to go to the floor defending it.