Fair and Reasonable Update: Court, Day 2

The hearing wrapped up early - at about 1pm yesterday. A shorter day that was focused on the Crown’s response, and the reply from our QC Jack Hodder.

The Crown, as you might have seen on Stuff, argued that the Minister didn’t even have to give LFO’s compensation for firearms let alone ammunition.

This was a pretty disappointing admission from the Crown that they believe the Government should just be able to take individual’s property without paying for it.

Our QC hit back on this strongly arguing that regardless of how the Government takes one’s property - whether they physically take it from you or ban you from having it - you are legally entitled to compensation. The Herald also covered the story.

“...a pretty disappointing admission from the Crown that they believe the Government should just be able to take individual’s property without paying for it.”

The Judge also sent the Crown away with some homework to do. He believes that there is likely to be more paperwork on the decision to not give compensation for ammunition than what was provided to the Court. It will be interesting to see what that unearths.

We finished the hearing by returning to the heart of the issue. The Government claimed that all the firearm changes were to make us safer but there was little said by the Crown on how the decision on ammunition did so.

What happens next? We can’t predict when the Judge will issue his decision but we are hoping that it will be well before the election. A positive outcome in this case would send a strong signal to all politicians that you if make unjustified policy decisions that trample on property rights you will be held to account.

We made it to the High Court with a QC representative and a Government on the back foot because you backed COLFO. Thank you for making this effort possible.

Nicole McKee

Spokesperson

Fair and Reasonable Campaign

Fair and Reasonable

PO Box 24020,

Manners Street,

Wellington 6142,

New Zealand

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ps. We've had many hundreds of emails over the last few days, and I just want to say that while I've been reading most of them I've only managed to reply to a few. I'll spend time this week catching up – but if you haven't received a response, please don't take it personally. This inbox is literally filling faster than I can reply to them!!

pps. Now that the case has been presented. Don't think for a moment that we'll take the pressure off the Government. We've still got a lot planned to defend the rights of law-abiding and responsible licenced firearms owners.