Nick Green: Gun Control NZ co-founder says Alfa carbines and Alfa hunters should be regulated

Gun control advocates want more regulation on a firearm popular among gangs.

The 782 Alfa carbines and Alfa hunters look indistinguishable from a handgun once its barrel and stock are cut off.  

One hundred and 63 of them were imported and passed on to criminals from 2019-2021.  

Gun Control NZ Co-Founder Nick Green told Andrew Dickens there is no reason they should be legal.  

He says semi-automatic guns have been regulated, and the Alfa carbines should be no different. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Have you heard about the Alpha guns. They are Alpha
carbines and our Alpha hunter rifles. Gun control advocates want
to ban on those rifles because they can be cut
down into handguns. Now, I hadn't heard about these guns
until just a month or two ago when somebody asked
for some pictures on the news. Criminals love these guns.

(00:20):
They get around the tight rules at limit their access
to the handguns. They cut them down so they're easily portable,
and they don't discard the shell so they don't leave
forensic evidence. About twenty one percent of these rifles brought
into New Zealand from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty one
have been passed on to the criminals. We found this
out from the police. Co founder of Gun Control New Zealand,

(00:42):
Nick Green is with me.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Now, have a Nick good Andrew, how are you.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Good outside of crime? What do people use these sorts
of guns for.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
It's pretty hard to tell, actually, I mean, they arguably
have a use for hunting, but you've got much better options.
You've got three or threes, you've got shotguns arb you.
There's really not a very strong case to have these
guns in the country to begin with.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
But we let them men. Why we let them.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
In because they're legal. You know, the police fight this
ongoing battle of having to assess the applications and trying
to block them. But because they're not prohibited, it's quite
hard to stop them coming in.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Should they be prohibited in your.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
View, yes, and our view. You know, you need to
stop the very dangerous gud into the community. We did
that with the simi automatic weapons. These are very similar.
They're highly split after by criminals, They're easily converted into
pistols and can be used in crimes. In our view,
they pose a real threat to the community, and it's
all threat.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Well, why are we talking about this now? Shouldn't we
have talked about it when they got the license, when
the police gave them the license to import the guns
in the first place. I mean, the guns are here,
it's a bit later than it.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Mate, Well, some of them are in. The question is
should we stop the flow the further flow coming in? Right,
we stop semi automatic weapons. Why do you want to
make life easy for criminals and let more of these
guns come in when we know that a fair chunk
of them will end up in the hands of games
in criminals.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
So should the process of importing guns into the see
them to then be sold, be changed so that there's
a chance for public expression of disquiet, which you would
have done for the Alphas when they first came in.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
It's a question of public risk. Lots of guns are
perfectly safe, have legitimate uses, like shotguns and rifles, But
the things that post a particular rest of the community,
like semi automatic weapons or things that can be converted
into pistols, we think there's a higher threshold involved.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Okay, is it just the olph carbines and the Oupha
hunters you want to ban on?

Speaker 2 (02:28):
These are the most prominent ones we think we've got
with most of the signify and guns, But it's an
ongoing game, right of wag mole. The police need to
be on top of their game and need to have
the tools to keep the community safe.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Is there anything else you're wanting to see in the
government's rewright of the Firearms Act which they're into right now,
and do you have confidence in that rewrite because they
seem to be more liberal about gun ownership than the
previous lot.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Well, in irview, there's like there's three things you need
to do to keep the community safe. You need really
strict rules and processes to make sure that only response
where people can get a license in a gun. You
need to register all all the guns in the community
so that if someone does try and sell it to
a criminal Right Game member, there's a high chance to
get caught. And the third thing you need to do
is you need to stop really dangerous guns from getting
into the country. Those are the three things we think

(03:11):
any new law needs to uphold.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Mat Green, co founder of Gun Controlling SIMA, thank you
for your time today.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
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