To read the headlines would be to weep for the death of sense and freedom in New Zealand. To do the math is to laugh for joy.
New Zealand’s first week of firearms buy-back successful: police
The first full week of New Zealand’s firearms buyback and amnesty, which aims to remove the most dangerous weapons from circulation, has produced a strong turnout as events roll out nationwide for the first time.
“Momentum is slowly starting to build as community collection events are held across the entire country,” Police Minister Stuart Nash said in a statement after 25 public firearm collection events were held over the past week, including seven held on Sunday.
How successful? Of a rough estimated 1.5 million subject firearms (I’ve seen WAGs ranging from 1-2 million), they got 3,275 guns.
0.22% compliance. Oh, yeah; New Zealanders are just rushing to surrender their arms.
Lessee, that’s 25 turn-in events. I had previously noted that — based on the low-ball one million guns guess — that they needed to get 3,861 guns per event. I guesstimated that they got 338 at the first event, just 8.75% of the per event number they needed.
Their per-event average is now down to 131, or 3.4%. The “best” turn-in, in Auckland, got 405 guns; 10.5%.
I had seen reports that “reimbursement” could go as high as 95% of new value. This report says 70%. I’m sure that’s helping folks decide to blow them off. I wonder how much of that is malicious compliance, with owners turning in inoperable beaters.
Assuming the turn-in rate doesn’t continue to drop, it’s only going to take them 38 years to get all those guns.
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could really use the money, what with ISP and web host bills. And the rabbits need feed. Click here to donate via PayPal.
(More Tip Jar Options)
Ed. note: This commentary appeared first in TZP’s weekly email alert. If you would like to be among the first to see new commentary (as well as to get notice of new polls and recaps of recent posts), please sign up for our alert list. (See sidebar or, if you’re on a mobile device, scroll down). Be sure to respond when you receive your activation email!
Interesting. To read the headline, you might think New Zealanders were eagerly swapping their guns for cash. Lessee…
This article guesstimates the number of firearms at 1-1.5 million. I’ll roll with that even though 1.5 million is the low end of other estimates I’ve seen.
Let’s say there are a mere one million guns to be turned in. There will be “more than 250” turn-in events; call it 259.
To get all the guns, they need to average 3861 per event. Oddly enough, while this story gives the number of people turning in guns (169), it doesn’t say how many guns were turned in. But they shelled out around NZ$430,000 ($288,000) to those 169.
NZ$2544/US$1705 per head. The payment is based on firearm age, and never goes more than 95% of market value as I understand it. So let’s say that was two guns per sucker.
338. That is: 8.75% of the average 3861 they need to get all of them.
That’s some compliance rate. And that’s the “best case.” “Worst case” is a mere 4.4%, based on another high end estimate I’ve seen.
Hmm. That could be a million torqued off gun owning voters. Given that 2017 election turn-out was 2.6 million, 2020 elections in New Zealand could be as interesting as in the US.
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could really use the money, what with ISP and web host bills. And the rabbits need feed. Click here to donate via PayPal.
(More Tip Jar Options)
Ed. note: This commentary appeared first in TZP’s weekly email alert. If you would like to be among the first to see new commentary (as well as to get notice of new polls and recaps of recent posts), please sign up for our alert list. (See sidebar or, if you’re on a mobile device, scroll down). Be sure to respond when you receive your activation email!
The deadline for compliance with the irrational “bump-stock-type device (BSTD)” — bump-fire — ban has passed. So how effective has the imperial fiat been at making the nation safe from inert “machineguns”?
Who the hell knows? No one even knows how many there were; the ATF’s “estimate” (“SA Smedley! Quick; bend over so I can pull a number out.”) was 280,000 to 520,000 BSTDs sold. I’d like to see them give a 95% confidence level for WAG.
But I was interested, so I’ve been collecting turn-in reports. Such as they are. The majority of reports of turn-ins and destruction were merely unsubstantiated, vague claims that “people” are “complying,” without so much as a single example. I don’t count those.
The biggie, of course, was RW Arms who turned in for destruction 60,000 items they still had in stock. I’m not counting those because they hadn’t been sold; they weren’t part of the 280-520K giggle-guess.
After that come the great state of Washington, with a reported 1,000 turned in during their “buy-back”.” The problem with that number is hiding in the details. People were supposed to be paid $150 for each bump-fire stock. But the most detailed report stated that they only paid for 122 of 150 stocks surrendered. I suspect they were paying for commercial products, and some maliciously compliant smartasses (bless ’em) slapped together some bump-fire stocks from hunks of wood or PVC pipe.
So my wild ass guess is that only 81% of the WA turn-ins would count against the ATF “sold” estimate: 810.
Illinois saw “a few” but a more detailed report clarified that “few” meant “1”.
Massachusetts, again with an earlier state ban: “only a few”. Since “few” doesn’t appear to be defined in statutory law, let’s say that between “handful” and “dozen.” Call it 8.
In North Carolina, the ATF claims “some” were turned over, but declined to give numbers. How many is “some”? I’m feeling generous. It was “steadily […] over the last few weeks.” Steadily = 1 per week. Few = 8. So call it 8 more BSTDs.
So, nationwide, I can only document 834 bump-fire stocks turned in. For some values of “document.”
But one can comply with the Royal Whim by destroying your valuable property. That’s going to be a little tougher to nail down.
I had no news reports specifically describing any destructions, just the aforemention vague “people are doing but we don’t know.” So next I turned to YouTube.
Frankly, a couple of searches there surprised me. I honestly thought I’d find more. As with news reports, it was mostly, “I’m going to,” or “I did, but I’m not showing it.”
The only videos I located which showed the destruction or the finished “product” numbered just…
Scratch the homemade unit (only counting those the ATF estimates “sold,” you know), and we have 10. We’re now up to 845 mass murder tactical death machines safely off the street.
845. Across the nation.
I searched a few firearms forums as well. Not a single turn-in or destruction mentioned. It was mostly, “They’re stupid; I never had one,” “I had one, but it wasn’t as good as I thought, and I got rid of it years ago,” or “They look like fun, but I never bought one.” I rather expected a “few” from my cold, dead hands declarations, but didn’t spot any.
845.
Taking the ATF’s low estimate of 280,000 BSTDs sold, they have achieved a miraculous 0.30% compliance rate.
Using the highball guess: 0.16%.
Trump must be so proud.
Zelman Partisan regulars are fine, upstanding people who obviously do their best to comply with constitutional laws. No doubt any of us who happened to own one of these evil machineguns has done the right thing. So quick poll of those who had them.
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could really use the money, what with truck repairs (too late; I’m selling the truck) and recurring bills. And the rabbits need feed. Truck insurance, lest I be forced to sell it. Click here to donate via PayPal.
(More Tip Jar Options)
Jews. Guns. No compromise. No surrender.
Password Reset
Please enter your e-mail address. You will receive a new password via e-mail.
