Re: Root causes
"Start with the gun laws, seems this may be the case in NZ."
NZ's gun laws are pretty good - to the point that the vast majority of "mass killings" over the years have been performed with double barrel shotguns. More knee-jerk gun control laws won't help the issue.
OTOH _Enforcement_ of NZ's gun laws (particularly the need for psychological assessment before being declared fit to possess category E weapons and general mental health assessment) is lacking - and that's down to an overly complacent/lazy police force. (If you think "Gene Hunt" (or worse) mentality you're about right - look at the gung ho way Kim Dotcom's place was raided. UK police who've moved to NZ have generally found they can't stomach it and left again. Tales abound in e2nz.com)
I've had dealings with regional police in NZ. Unless handed everything on a silver platter they're unlikely to take action to prevent crime occurring(+) and even when organised crime rings settle in the country it takes concerted prodding to get them to notice - cf Rathkeale Rovers having a substantial number of family units circulating in the country - police now acknowledging at least 32 known offenders, but only 4 in custody/one able to flee the country in less than 24 hours after being released on bail using on a relative's passport - and this only because annoyed citizens started researching and piling material to a height which couldn't be ignored - tie ins also noted to multi-billion dollar drug smuggling, so the roofing/driveway scams seem to be a distraction tactic in both Australia and NZ - the more being dug up, the more obvious it is becoming that this organised crime 'family' has been resident in AU/NZ for at least 20 if not 30+ years)
(+) In a number of cases the _police_ have been the criminals. NZ has had a notable number of criminal convictions overturned in the House of Lords where the Law Lords pointed out obviously fabricated evidence and made very harsh criticisms of policecondust and judiciary's over-cozy relationships with them - NZ's response was to remove the House of Lords as the independent highest court so that couldn't happen anymore.
In _most_ cases over the years it's come out that NZ police failed to heed warnings of erratic or extremist behaviour in the days/weeks/months leading up to an incident - Aromoana is held out as the classic case because of its horror, the use of automatic weapons and rural isolation, but there are dozens more cases of murders where the police were warned week/months beforehand but stood by and did nothing until triggers were pulled.
NZ has one of the highest per-capita gun ownership rates in the western world (at one point substantially higher than the USA) and one of the lowest firearms-involved(*) crime rates so they must be doing most things right, however when they do get things wrong, they get them very very wrong.
(*) Virtually every case has involved stolen weapons(**), locally manufactured weapons or ones which have been smuggled in/been in criminal circulation for decades (***)
(**) Securing your weapons is a big deal and having stuff stolen is grounds for license revokation. Despite individual weapons not needing registration (they used to, it was found to be ineffective) owners are required to keep records of serial numbers, etc.
(***) It's _difficult_ to smuggle things into a country that's 3 hours flight from anywhere else and some of the stuff criminals have predates effective gun laws enacted 50 years ago
Biting the hand that feeds IT
