Police 'credibility' in firing line after image of fake pistols among seized weapons

In a rare moment of agreement, both sides of the country's gun debate are questioning why police included a picture of what appears to be a pistol-shaped cigarette lighter in a press release on weapons confiscated during a drug bust last month.

They said describing the novelty trinket as a weapon suggested the police had a lax approach to firearms reporting that was muddying the waters around the state of gun violence in Aotearoa.

A police statement on the bust of a multi-million-dollar drug supply chain operating between Christchurch and Auckland, included ominous pictures of stacks of seized cash, bags of crystalline substances and two weapons.

But eagle-eyed firearms enthusiasts saw something amiss with a revolver-type pistol, pictured lying upside down on a starkly lit table top.

With 'Made in China' embossed on the body of the gun and what appeared to be screw holes in the barrel, the weapon matched gas fuelled cigarette lighters available online for about $40.

A police spokesperson said the item pictured was an imitation firearm and not a lighter.

However, Hugh Devereux-Mack of the Council of Licensed Firearms Arms Owners (COLFO) was not convinced.

"It didn't take too long to do an image search on Google and find the fact that this was an imitation firearm, a lighter. So it wasn't even a starter pistol or something that could be wrongly mistaken for a pistol, this was completely and clearly not a firearm," Devereux-Mack said.

At no point in the police description of the three firearms seized during the operation did police point to the fact that any of the weapons could be replicas.

Devereux-Mack said the blunder could only cast doubt on police statements of the extent of gun-related incidents.

"We are being asked to trust them to keep us safe, yet they're reporting numbers that are misleading not only Parliament and the New Zealand people, but the media as well. That shows that there is a closer examination needed of all of their stats that they have made claims to around the register and all firearms since 2019," he said.

Gun Control NZ typically occupied an opposing viewpoint to COLFO and supported the gun registry and tighter measures of firearm control in Aotearoa.

But in this case, co-founder Nik Green agreed that including the novelty item in a statement about serious crime was counterproductive.

"I think the risk here is that the police lose credibility with the public, particularly when they are under criticism from very highly motivated opponents of gun control laws. We've had very strong messages that there is a risk to the public from guns, which we believe, this doesn't really do them any favours," Green said.

In March 2019, police began entering incidents into the Gunsafe Database whenever firearms were believed to be involved.

That could include instances when the presence of a firearm had not been proven or a witness statement was found to be incorrect.

In the first five months of 2023, more than 1000 events were filed into the Gunsafe Database.

Of those, 10 percent involved reports of a weapon being discharged. But in an OIA response, police said data on incidents where a confirmed firearm was present were not directly collected.

In the same period, there were only two situations where police were required to discharge its own weapons.

Green said his organisation had struggled to obtain a clear picture from police of the true nature of gun crime in the country.

"Gun data has been really under-resourced for the past 30 years. It's a part of a wider picture in which we haven't registered guns, we've not kept an eye on them and, if we want to get on top of this, we've got to really take gun data seriously and get it right," he said.

As charges stemming from Operation Italian Sky and Operation Sumatra were now before the courts police said they were unable to comment further.