Bruce Ansley on a publication which seeks to educate journalists on firearms
In March 1961 Keith Holyoake’s National government demanded that all 20-year-old men enter a lottery. Their birthday dates would go into a barrel and if their names were drawn, why, they’d score three years in the army, off and on. The odds were better than a lottery ticket: A one-in-three chance of winning, even if the prize wasn’t so good.
This was called National Service and a lot of Kiwi ingenuity went into becoming one of the losers. My personal favourite was the advice from a friend to change my name to Parts on the grounds that the Army would jib at calling me Private Parts. (He didn’t know much about the Army). I thought of registering as a conscientious objector but decided it would be too offensive to my father, who’d been a pilot in World War II. One of my brothers did however. "Good on him," said my dad. My brother’s number didn’t come up in the ballot.
My own did though, and off I went, first to Burnham then to Waiouru. We were issued with much gear, ill-fitting jungle greens, truly horrible boots, belts, gaiters and rifles (we didn’t call them guns, for if we did the sergeant threatened to march us around the camp holding our rifles in one hand and our penises in the other, chanting, "This is my rifle, this is my gun, this one’s for shooting, this one’s for fun." This was a ridiculous world, and we took him seriously.
We took our rifles seriously too. They were our constant companions. They looked satisfyingly evil.
They were called SLRs, which stood for self-loading rifles. They would fire as quickly as you could pull the trigger, and even become a machine-gun if you did something tricky to a gadget up front. We weren’t allowed to do this, not through any ethical restraint but because the weapon became wildly inaccurate on automatic. Even the Army had its limits.
The SLR was our constant companion. We lived with them. We knew them more intimately than we knew women who, our instructor pointed out, would be absolutely useless in an ambush.
They were fascinating, and horrible. I proved to be a good shot, but I hated them, and since then have touched a firearm only once. That was the night I went shooting with a friend in the Mackenzie Country. I shot a rabbit which cried like a baby as it died.
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The Sporting Shooters’ Association of New Zealand (SSANZ) has published A Journalist’s Guide to Firearms and the Shooting Sports. It aims "to make it easier for journalists covering firearms-related news stories," and to give us the basic knowledge needed to deliver our stories accurately.
First among these stories, of course, is the tale of the Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant who came to New Zealand and had no trouble at all acquiring six firearms some of which, on March 15, 2019, he used to kill 51 people and injure 40 more at two Christchurch mosques.
SSANZ lays out Golden Rules for journalists. Golden Rule number one: "Never point a firearm, loaded or empty, at anyone." Note to the association: Journalists don’t carry guns. For the evil Tarrant and every armed lunatic who appears in the news, pointing a firearm at someone is the point.
SSANZ assures reporters (Golden Rule number two) that "there are reputable facts and figures behind every firearm-related issue". If journalists had contacted the association following the mosque massacres, for example, they would have discovered president Neville Dodd’s view: “Clearly the responsibility for the dreadful atrocity rests with police for their incompetence in issuing Tarrant a licence.”
A selection of similarly reputable facts and figures can be found on their website. Most recently, the association supported Simon Bridges’ attacks on Police Commissioner Andrew Coster as a ‘wokester’: "Sadly the Commissioner is coming across as toothless."
Did Tarrant use firearms or weapons? There’s a big difference between the two (Golden Rule number three): Firearms are not weapons unless they’re used as one. ("By god Maud, say that one more time and I’m going to show you the difference between a firearm and a weapon.")
Remember, Golden Rule number five urges us, that firearms laws do not affect illegal firearm activities. Other than making them illegal, one imagines. As the association’s website proclaims, "Firearms laws are a lot like most other laws, essentially triumphs of hope over reality."
Or, as Cormac McCarthy put it in his novel The Road: "When the shooting starts, would you rather be armed or legal?"
Avoid bringing emotion into reporting of animal hunts or culls, urges Golden Rule number seven (number six being both too obscure and too boring to bother with). Sorry about the dead bunny story, boys. Wimps will be wimps.
But even the SSANZ loses its iron grip on emotion, occasionally. It wasn’t happy about the Himalayan tahr cull. To say these magnificent beasts were responsible for laying waste to swathes of the highest, loveliest country in the south was going a little, well, over the top. Surely, its website suggests, controlling rapacious rabbits would be a better target than the livelihood of guides and the recreation of hunters. That’s fair, isn’t it? After all, hunters maintain both a close connection with their environment and have a great appreciation for all wildlife. Especially when it’s in the sights, I thought, moving on to Golden Rule number nine, which urges me to recognise the dangers of comparing New Zealand’s firearms’ issues with those in other countries. Same guns, same bullets, but New Zealand is, well, unique. We have a different economy, culture, firearms law and criminal culture. Comparing this country with, say, the US is evidently both inaccurate and unwise. As a journalist writing for The Listener I covered two of New Zealand’s most notorious mass shootings, the Bain family killings and the Aramoana massacre. They were unique, all right, but a large number of people finished up just as dead.
The SSANZ appears to believe that (1) journalists are ignorant of the true beauty of firearms and (2) a spot of good PR will convince us to change our views, or at least those contrary to the aims of recreational shooters. Which leads to Golden Rule number 10, their last: If in doubt, ask SSANZ. We’d learn for example that the government’s firearms buy-back scheme was in fact a "confiscation" that the association suspects "will have little if any significant effect on firerarm homicides, suicides and other misuses".
These are good-hearted, law-abiding people promoting their cause. But here’s my own Golden Rule number 11 for journalists: Always look a cause in the mouth.
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When I moved to Waiheke Island I became a member of the Returned Services Association on the grounds that they served the best snapper and chips in the island, and possibly the entire world. I might have pleaded that I’d returned from Waiouru which was at least as bad as the Libyan desert, and much colder, but I didn’t need to. Lacking recent wars, the RSA needed members. All they required for the reduced subscription was proof of service, which the army provided with a nice note addressed to Lt B.L. Ansley (Ret). So the RSA let me in for an annual sub of $20 with the promise that when I turned 90, it would be free.
A Journalist's Guide to Firearms and the Shooting Sports is published by The Sporting Shooters Association of New Zealand. Its website offers embroidered badges and bumper stickers for $10.
