Andrew Dickens Afternoons

We seem to have got into a bit of a muddle over guns and it seems to be getting worse.After the March terror attacks using the infamous AR 15, a semi-automatic military style weapon, the nation has reacted in all sorts of ways and I’m not sure any of them really work.Last week we entered the final days of the government’s buyback scheme. With six weeks left we have so far collected 32,000 guns from 19,000 people which has cost us $62 million.If people don’t hand in the other prohibited firearms and parts by 20 December they will get no money and will face up to five years in prison and the loss of their firearms licence.Now 32,000 guns off the street is better than nothing but let’s compare that with Australia’s buyback programme in 1996 where over  660,000 firearms were retrieved from gun owners with a cost estimated at half a billion dollars. Australia has five times the population so taking that into account New Zealand will be lucky to end out with a third of the guns.Why is anybody’s guess. Perhaps the g