7 February 2025
IR-01-25-2910
Malcolm Lock
[FYI request #29809 email]
Tēnā koe Malcolm
Thank you for your Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) request of 19 January 2025. You
asked for:
Gun Control New Zealand recently publicly stated...
"Police have provided data which shows that people who obtain a firearms licence
as teenagers are more likely to commit crimes than their unvetted peers"
Please supply the information that has been supplied to Gun Control New Zealand,
or any member of Gun Control New Zealand that is known by the New Zealand
police, for which they make this claim.
If Gun Control New Zealand or any known member of Gun Control New Zealand
did not request this information, then please provide the information that Gun
Control New Zealand is referring to.
Link to the document with the statement from Gun Control New Zealand.
https://www.guncontrol.nz/submission?xch...
Please see the attached OIA response reference IR-01-24-37073 which is the most
proximate information previously released to Gun Control. Please note some information
has been withheld under section 9(2)(a) of the OIA to protect the privacy of natural
persons. Police considers the interests requiring protection by withholding the information
are not outweighed by any public interest in the release of the information. Note that
Police is unable to determine nor affect how Gun Control interprets any data provided to
them by Police.
For your information, Police has developed a process for proactive release of information,
so the anonymised response to your request may be publicly released on the
New Zealand Police website.
You have the right, under section 28(3) of the OIA, to make a complaint to an
Ombudsman about this response. Information about how to make a complaint is
available at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.
Nāku noa, nā
Matthew Boddy
Acting Director Operations
Firearms Safety Authority
Te Tari Pūreke – Firearms Safety Authority
Telephone: 0800 844 431
www.firearmssafetyauthority.govt.nz
Te Tari Pūreke – Firearms Safety Authority is a business unit of New Zealand Police.
9 December 2024
IR-01-24-37073
s.9(2)(a) OIA
Tēnā koe s.9(2)(a) OIA
Thank you for your Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) request dated 21 October 2024.
You asked for:
I have previously received a graph from Police (attached) showing how long
licence holders have held their licence before they commit an offence. Could you
please provide the same graph, but only for the population of endorsement
holders? I am interested in understanding if endorsement holders are less prone
to criminal offending than the A category population of licence holders. I am
happy to receive the information in different ways, so long as it is easy to make
the comparison between the criminal offending of endorsement holders versus
the population of licence holders with no endorsements.
On 21 November 2024, you clarified that you “
would like the data to cover al offending.
There isn't real y a timeframe because you need all available data to create the output”.
As requested, please refer to the table below that shows the time period a first offence
occurred over al offences, and if a conviction resulted for that offence, broken time by
firearms licence and endorsements as at 26 November 2024.
Al available data is included in this response from 1 June 1984 to 26 November 2024.
Te Tari Pūreke – Firearms Safety Authority
Telephone: 0800 844 431 www.firearmssafetyauthority.govt.nz
Te Tari Pūreke – Firearms Safety Authority is a business unit of New Zealand Police.
Table: Time period first offence occurred after the first issue of a firearms licence,
if a conviction resulted for that offence, over al offence types, broken down by
Firearms Licences and Endorsements as at 26 November 2024
Years
Firearms Licenses
Endorsements
No Conviction
93.95%
97.13%
0
0.31%
0.19%
1
0.38%
0.13%
2
0.32%
0.15%
3
0.26%
0.19%
4
0.25%
0.15%
5
0.20%
0.09%
6
0.22%
0.15%
7
0.26%
0.15%
8
0.28%
0.09%
9
0.27%
0.13%
10
0.30%
0.16%
11
0.28%
0.11%
12
0.26%
0.17%
13
0.22%
0.17%
14
0.21%
0.13%
15
0.18%
0.11%
16
0.16%
0.10%
17
0.16%
0.07%
18
0.13%
0.05%
19
0.16%
0.07%
20
0.18%
0.07%
21
0.16%
0.04%
22
0.12%
0.04%
23
0.14%
0.03%
24
0.12%
0.04%
25
0.11%
0.04%
26
0.11%
0.03%
27
0.06%
0.01%
28
0.06%
0.01%
29
0.03%
0.01%
30
0.03%
0.01%
31
0.02%
-
32
0.02%
-
33
0.02%
-
34
0.02%
-
35
0.01%
-
36
0.01%
-
37
0.01%
-
38
0.01%
-
39
0.01%
-
There are 463 people with convictions from a total of 16,123 people with firearms licence
endorsements. The percentages shown in the Endorsements column represent the
distribution of the 463 licence holders with convictions in terms of years since they
obtained their endorsement.
The first time an endorsement was issued prior to an offence resulting in a conviction is
based on the time between the date the first endorsement issued and the offence date.
Any subsequent endorsements issued to that same licence holder have been excluded
from this data. Licence holders may hold multiple endorsement types that could have
been issued at separate times, for example, a B endorsement could have been issued
prior to offending and a C endorsement could have been issued post offending, however
this would be based on the date the B endorsement was issued.
This data is not indicative of the status of any endorsement at the time of offending or
how long a person held an active endorsement prior to offending. To provide this level of
data would require a manual search of each licence holder file and would most likely be
refused under section 18(f) of the OIA, that the information cannot be made available
without substantial collation and research.
This is not indicative of how long a person held their primary A-Standard firearms licence
prior to offending as an endorsement may have been applied for and issued several
years after the initial A-Standard firearms licence was issued.
This is not indicative of a charge outcome.
In addition, for “comparison between the criminal offending of endorsement holders
versus the population of licence holders with no endorsements”, I refer you to column 3 of
the table above that shows the time between the date a person was first issued with
endorsement and the date the first offence occurred if a conviction resulted for that
offence, over al offence types as at 26 November 2024.
This data sample used for calculating the table contains a random sample of firearms
licence holders. The data sample for A- category licence holders in the table is comprised
from a random sample of 150,000 firearms licence holders.
There are 9,026 A-category licence holders with convictions from a sample set of
149,228 A- category licence holders. The table shows the distribution of the 9,026 A-
category licence holders with convictions in terms of years since they obtained their A-
category licence.”
The time an A-category licence was held prior to an offence that resulted in a conviction
is based on the time between the date the licence was first issued and the date the
offence occurred that resulted in a conviction.
This is not indicative of the status of the licence at the time of offending or how long a
person held an active licence prior to offending. To provide this level of data would
require a manual search of each licence holder file and would most likely be refused
under section 18 (f) of the OIA, that the information cannot be made available without
substantial collation and research.
You have the right to ask the Ombudsman to review this decision if you are not satisfied
with the response to your request. Information about how to make a complaint is
available at: www.ombudsman.parliament.nz.
For your information, Police has developed a process for proactive release of information,
so the anonymised response to your request may be publicly released on the New
Zealand Police website.
Nāku noa, nā
Matthew Boddy
Acting Director Operations
Firearms Safety Authority
