During the firearm buyback of 2019, many opponents to the scheme said criminals would still hold onto their illegal guns while law-abiding firearms owners handed theirs in.

At the time, Mongrel Mob leader Sonny Fatu backed up this claim by saying their members and associates would not hand in the illegal firearms they possessed.

After the buyback ended, then-Police Minister Stuart Nash said he thought the Government had “got the majority of these [newly banned] guns in”

The unfortunate truth of the buyback’s failure was acknowledged yesterday in the NZ Herald. Reformed drug kingpin Billy Macfarlane said, “even though people have handed [guns] in and taken them off the street, the worst guns and the worst people are still in each other's company.”

Criminals also continue to subvert the rules outside of firearms law, importing prohibited firearms from overseas to add to those stockpiled after the buyback.

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