A local pistol club member’s home was ransacked causing thousands of dollars of damage, after thieves broke into the club searching for an attendance register.
Two men broke into the Motueka Pistol Club in February 2021, stealing the attendance register, among other things, which details member’s names.
Shortly after the break-in at the club, a member’s home was broken into.
Both men have recently been sentenced for the club break-in, receiving home detention and paying a small monetary amount to the two local gun clubs they stole from.
The Motueka club’s committee expressed relief that the matter has drawn to a close, even though it took the better part of 15 months, but were disappointed at the final outcome.
“One got an initial indication of 43 months in prison and ended up with 9 months home detention. These people are just a walking crimewave, everyone was bitterly disappointed,” said a member who asked not to be named. “Full credit to the police though, they worked really hard on this.”
The committee said in a statement to Waimea Weekly: “The fact that the burglary was specifically aimed at obtaining the attendance book is, however, deeply alarming, the more so since other clubs have experienced the same thing.”
The committee says, part of being a certified range, is that you are affiliated with Pistol NZ, and as such, have a strict set of rules and regulations to abide by, one of which is accounting for anyone who is on site at any given time.
The committee says they are aware of several other break-ins of shooting clubs where burglars were looking for membership lists, both locally and in the North Island.
"One of the Government’s current aims is to have a computer-based register, not only of firearms licence holders but also of all the guns they have.
“Even secure computer data bases are hacked with disturbing regularity and there is no commanding reason to think that this won’t happen to any gun registry that government compiles,” said the statement.
The committee worry that any online database could become a shopping list for gang members.
Since the break-in the club have changed the way they keep their attendance records.
