CHECK UPON FIREARMS

Taranaki Daily News, 13 January 1932, Page 9

CHECK UPON FIREARMS

MANY CURIOUS PATTERNS FLINTLOCKS AND MACHINE-GUNS. LICENSING WAR SOUVENIRS. Since the Arms Act came into operation, the central police station at Auckland has dealt with a varied numbei of weapons, either for destruction or i cgiatration, says the Herald. Most of ths revolvers, rifles and shotguns have been produced for registration, but frequently the owners of firearms hand them in for destruction, either to evade the registration fee or because the weapons, which previously were registered, are of no further use.

When firearms are confiscated by the Court because the owners have failed to register them, or when the owners decide to surrender them, the weapons are sorted in different categories, those with a commercial value and those which, cannot be sold. Those which have any worth are kept until the annual auction, when they are offered for sale, while the remainder are kept for * period and then destroyed. The usual process of destruction is to break the weapons in a vice and throw the parts into the harbour. An officer employed at the Arms Office does this duty, the most common manner of carrying out the task being to take the parts on a ferry boat bound for any part of the North Shore, and to throw them overboard in the middle of the harbour channel. In no circumstances are complete weapons thrown away. GREAT VARIETY OF WEAPONS; During the past few years a great variety of weapons has passed through the Auckland office, which deals with more firearms than any other office in New Zealand. The arms which have been brought in have ranged from flintlock pistols more than 100 years old to machine-guns and the latest type of rifle. It is not generally known that every firearm exhibited in a museum must be registered, even though it is incapable of being fired, but this point was decided when the authorities of a southern museum appealed to the Minister of Justice, who is in charge of the Arms Office, and who decided that every relic, whatever its antiquity, must be registered. Ab a result the museum which appealed was forced to pay fees on 70 weapons in its collection. All the obsolete firearms in the War Memorial Museum are, therefore, registered, while many weapons of almost as great an age have been brought into the Arms Office by private citizens. In a number of Auckland homes there are blunderbusses many years old which are still classed by the law as weapons, and each of these is registered. Many of them are of great value, the chasing and adornment being a reminder of a more leisurely age when craftsmen followed the desires of their customers to the finest particular. OLD-FASHIONED PISTOLS. The rifles and shotguns which have been registered are for the most part of a fairly modern type, the oldest rifles being of the common Snider type, originated in I'Bso, which are still used extensively for pig-hunting on account of their unusual killing power. The greatest variety is presented by the pistols and revolvers which have been presented. The oldest types, owned by Auckland citizens as curios, are flintlocks, with a barrel about a foot long, while many examples of the other old muzzle-loading pattern, exploded by a percussion cap, nave been brought into the Arms Office. In these pistols powder and ball were rammed into the barrel by a small ramrod, the explosion being caused by a spark from a cap which travelled down a special vent into the barrel. The old flintlocks were of the same type, the spark being created by the action of a steel on flint when the hammer struck the flint-holder mounted on the side of the barrel. Although these pistols appeared cumbrous, they were perfectly balanced and as easy to use as a modern revolver. Among the other old small arms to be found in 5 Auckland are tiny smooth-bore pistols, not more than 2in. long, which fired a heavy calibre ball by means of a percussion cap. These weapons, which were specially designed to be carried unobtrusively in a pocket, must have been deadly at short range, but not very accurate at any distance. SOUVENIRS OF THE WAR. Other curiosities which have been registered are revolvers possessing six barrels, which in turn came in contact with the firing mechanism, these being the predecessors of the six-chambered revolver. There are also very short sin-gle-barrelled pistols, which snapped open to allow one cartridge to be inserted in the breech, these also being designed for carrying in inner pockets without attracting attention to . the possessor. Probably the most unusual registrations at Auckland, as in other centres In New Zealand, have been the licensing of machine-guns held as war souveniors by the museum or by local bodies. Under the Act every machine-gun, whether in a state of sufficient preservation to enable it to be fired or not, has to be licensed. All war souveniors in the shape of firearms have to be registered, and it frequently happens that returned soldiers have brought home revolvers and automatic pistols, picked up on the battlefield or obtained from comrades, which lay forgotten at their owners’ homes until their presence was revealed to the police, often by chance. In these cases it usually happens that the owner, rather than have the weapon confiscated, surrenders it. to, the Crown and .then pays a small fine. ' ’ The range of weapons so acquired by the police is wide, and* includes all types of Army revolvers, from the British service Webley, kept as a souvenir of personal service, to Mauser and other German weapons, which have been collected after attacks on enemy trenches.