NEW ZEALAND POLICE Ngé Pirihimana 0 Aotearoa 3 March 2020 (Our Reference: IR-01-20-2261 Dear Mike |lam writing to you in response to your request dated 22 January 2020. You asked for: During the gun buy back | was called on more than one occasion by police. They were just checking that | would hand in my firearms. How many others got such calls? Why were these people called when Police KNEW that the owners had prohibited Weapons and yet the man who criticized police (In an article that went viral) was raided without warning on the mero suspicion of such? What is the current measure for police securing such werrants to raid the homes of lawful shooters? The victim above sent a picture to Parliament's select committee on request That was enough for him. Is Police sooing an old picture of a fogally owned gun enough to raid lawful shooters now? Wf this assumed gui’ theory going to be applied to any other areas of law enforcement? Has it been? ‘our request has been considered under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act) | have interpreted the part of your request asking about calls to be asking only about ‘outbound calls, instead of inbound. During the Amnesty and Buyback Programme Police estimate that we called approximately 8000 firearm licence holders regarding the surrender of firearms. In addition to this, local Police staff where required also followed up cirectty. ‘The purpose of these calls was to check with firearms licence holders if they had already surrendered or were intending to, and also to update them on the law changes where necessary. Calls were largely to E Category licence holders and collectors, but also included dealers, In relation to your request regarding a highly publicized instance of Police following up on possible non-compliance with the law, Police did not rely on that individual's submiss on to Parliament as the basis for our actions. Police will not be revealing the source of information used for this investigation. This information is withhels under section 6(c) of the Act, as the making available of that information would be likely to projudice the maintenance of the lav, including the prevention, investigation, and detection of offences. You have the right to ask the Ombudsman to review my decision if you are not satisfied with Police's response to your request. Police Nationa! Headquarters 180 Molesworth Street. PO Box 3017, Wellington 6140, New Zealang, ‘Telephone: 04 474 9499, Fax: 04 498 7400. www.palice. govt nzFor your information, Police has developed a process for proactive release of information, 's0 the anonymised response to your request may be publicly released on the New Zeaiand Police website Yours sincerely \ Neil Banks, Progrdmme Manager Arms Act Amendment Response and Operations Police National Headquarters.