The government's firearms safety authority has publicly told off a gun owners' lobby group for claiming police have bullied and intimidated licensed gun owners. The authority's acting director, Superintendent Bruce Bird, called the group's stance "inflammatory" and questioned whether it truly represents firearms owners.

The argument comes as a group of MPs who review proposed laws — the Justice Select Committee — has recommended that the Arms Bill be passed, according to RNZ. The bill is moving ahead alongside the creation of a new independent regulator, Firearms Safety and Education New Zealand, which the authority said would likely start operating from September.

The new regulator will sit inside New Zealand Police for back-office support, but police officers themselves will no longer make day-to-day decisions about firearms licensing. That change addresses a long-standing complaint from the lobby group, the Council of Licensed Firearms Owners (COLFO), that police should not be in charge of regulating gun owners.

COLFO representative Hugh Devereux-Mack told RNZ that trust in police among licensed gun owners had dropped since 2019. He said police now treat licensed owners as potential criminals. He claimed police used bullying and standover tactics, raided licensed gun owners' homes for reasons that were not criminal, and now turn up at homes armed with pistols as standard practice. He also said police were trying to pressure lawmakers into making firearms rules stricter.

Bird responded directly to RNZ. He said he was "incredibly disappointed" by COLFO's "inflammatory position" and pointed out that COLFO's membership is less than 5% of New Zealand's 220,000 firearms licence holders. He said COLFO runs an annual survey through a Facebook page that he called "non-scientific," which always concludes there should be less regulation and that police should not be the regulator.

Bird said the authority's own surveys showed growing trust among both licensed gun owners and the wider public. He said the vast majority of firearms licence holders are law-abiding, and the authority makes no apologies for taking licences off people found to be no longer fit and proper — for example, because of criminal offending, domestic violence, or psychological difficulties.

The Firearms Safety Authority is a separately branded unit within New Zealand Police, Bird said. The authority's criticism of COLFO was made in response to RNZ's reporting, not through a formal press release.

The broader context here is that the whole system for regulating firearms in New Zealand is changing. The Arms Bill and the new regulator together form the biggest shake-up of firearms administration since the law changes that followed the Christchurch mosque shootings, which tightened the rules on owning guns. The decision to keep the new regulator inside Police for support, while removing police officers from day-to-day decisions, is a compromise — it tries to fix the perception that police have a conflict of interest without cutting the link to Police entirely.

COLFO's claims about armed visits and house raids are serious and specific. Whether they gain attention will depend on whether COLFO can produce evidence beyond its own member surveys. Bird's response, framing COLFO as a small, self-selecting group whose findings are predetermined, is a deliberate attempt to limit the group's credibility in Parliament and in public debate. The authority's own trust surveys, which Bird says show improving confidence, are likely to be questioned by COLFO and possibly by MPs from across Parliament.

The detail that will matter most to licence holders and to officials managing the transition is how the new authority separates back-office support from actual regulatory decisions in practice. How that line is drawn, and whether it satisfies those who want a fully independent regulator completely outside Police, will shape how the Arms Bill is received as it moves toward its final vote.