The New Zealand lifestyle, Clampett style.
A lovely vignette of the New Zealand lifestyle appeared on the Trademe.co.nz forum today.
Living next door to a myopic family with access to a rifle is not everyone’s idea of bliss, but still this person felt guilty for reporting them
“Told on the Neighbours today… (Christchurch City)
And feeling a lil guilty. We live in a residental area, and for the last few days our back neighbours have been shooting off a riffle. At what we don’t know, probably targets. But today they shot and hit our chimney, we were all sitting inside when an an almighty bang rang through the lounge. Gave us a huge fright. I don’t know, what would you have done?We have young children playing in the back yard as do a few others around us.”
A complaint was made, but to whom?
“Lol, the Men in blue. We were really only ringing to lay a complaint, but then they said they’d be right around…..2 police cars later and 3 police…..guns taken away. The young boy’s that were shooting the gun had taken off, but the Mother was there and was apparently mortified.”
Seems like other people have the same problem. Another poster replied
“My neighbours were doing the same – shooting at a target on the fence between our properties. Not very good shots though as one went through our lounge window! I called the police as I had young children at the time, plus I wanted to be paid for the window. After the police visit I got an apology (but they never did pay for the window). Police advised them to put the target on the other fence – result? They shot the other neighbours’ dogs!
There is no safe place in a residential area for these guns.” more here
C’mon – this is New Zealand. The place where primary school kids dress up dead possums. Where a pig shoot is good family day out and Angora rabbits are tied to benches, stretched out and sheared like sheep. There’s no safe place in rural areas either, for man nor beast.
Also from Trademe.co.nz
Neighbour has camera looking into my room (Manukau City)
“my neighbour has a camera set up that looks directly into my bedroom
i just noticed it today and he can possibly see into the bedroom next door which is my flatmates shes a girl. is there anything i can do about this?”
You may also be interested in
A man was arrested for shooting an air rifle on Cornwallis Beach in West Auckland on the afternoon of 11 Jan 04. Police are “still considering which charges the man will face.”
Alleged buttocks shooter in court: An 18 year old male has appeared at a Hamilton court charged with shooting two people with an air rifle outside the town’s Pizza Hut on Christmas eve and Christmas day. Shawn Michael Hawkins is charged with two counts of careless use of a firearm causing death or injury and one of possessing cannabis.
Kaikoura Firearm Chase and The Roar: A man was chased around Kaikoura at gun point and police issued an advisory to take care with firearms during the hunting season. Fortunately, the whale watching season was over and all animal lovers were likely to be absent from the town, thus spared from having to watch the slaughter.
The Great Easter Bunny hunt: Is an annual event in Otago sponsored by Moa Beer. (who said alcohol and guns don’t mix?) Last year nearly 23,000 rabbits, 979 hares, 8 pigs, many stoats and a goat were shot. Killing can be such fun for the kids, what a great place to raise them.
Always prepared to deal with anything the scout group collected the rabbit corpses for composting.
E2NZ.org 
As soon as you hit the West Coast of the South Island you start seeing all of these “No Shooting” signs. It’s always made me wonder why they felt the need to put them there, but now I know why. The gun culture in some parts of New Zealand is out of control. My wife and I spent a month staying in Roxburgh in 2010/11 – I’ve never heard so much live gunfire in my life! The funny thing is, none of the locals even bat an eyelid at this…
Article updated
Man arrested for shooting an air gun on Cornwallis Beach at 1.45pm on 11/1/14. Police have yet to decide what to charge him with.
We live on the outskirts of town with a farm workers shared house in the street.
The farm boys had a party (middle of the day), got drunk and broke out a couple of shotguns and started blasting around the garden! There are about 20 closely packed houses in the street.
They were shocked the police arrived. I simply cannot understand why they thought this to be acceptable behaviour.
We had a similar thing happen in the block of three flats I live in. New tenants moved into one of the flats, added extensions to turn the fence around their place to change it from four feet high to six feet, and then proceeded to fire a gun at targets on the property. Now granted it was a slug gun and not a fully fledged firearm, but they didn’t stick to the targets and were firing at the wildlife and pets in the area as well. You could hear the cracking noises of the gun going off as you walked up the driveway. At the time there were four children living nearby, and it was only a matter of time before someone got shot.
In the end two of us called the police and the gun was confiscated.
Thanks for the message. Your’s was the most sensible course of action under the circumstances. This tom foolery with firearms is more prevalent than we’d appreciated.
“…it was a slug gun and not a fully fledged firearm.” — Some ‘slug guns’ are lethal weapons.
In Australia, the various types of “air-guns”, i.e.”pneumatic weapons” are legally “firearms”, and subject to the same legislation, so the same penalties apply as to the misuse of firearms.
Of course, there could be variations from state to state, there usually are, however, the general rule is, an air rifle is a firearm, seems very sensible to me. It’s about time the citizens of Banjo-land got the message.
“…..for the last few days our back neighbours have been shooting off a riffle”
“For the last few days”? Days? Not Minutes, but days! Jeeeez!!
The Clampetts were harmless compared to those idiots, I’m including the neighbour who made the complaint, BTW, Forget about the Hobbits, NZ seems like the ideal place for a remake of “Deliverance”,
“Police advised them to put the target on the other fence – result? They shot the other neighbours’ dogs!”
Thank God NZ refused to join the Australian Federation.
E2NZ,
I really can’t believe those reports, am I missing something?
The sound of banjos?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wntnxUBs6Ws
The obvious remark here is, “Yanks aren’t the only ones with a social gun problem, however much they like to say we are”. Why do Americans move to a place so far away from family and friends, involving multiple thousands of dollars in airfares if you want to go home and visit them, to endure such a high cost of living, horrible housing, scenery that is okay but basically the only thing on offer, and “free” (NOT) healthcare that you can buy on your own if you don’t have to shell out for huge airfares? To those Americans who are thinking about “escaping” America – it’s frying pan to fire if you move to New Zealand. This is a backwater – it’s Kentucky at Swiss prices. If you want Kentucky, move to Kentucky. The people are friendlier, the houses are warmer, and it’s way way cheaper!
You are 100% correct. Having relocated from NZ to Switzerland, I can assure you that our expenses here are about the same as New Zealand, but the quality of life is much better. Kiwis have all the flaws of American rednecks without any of their virtues.
Good to hear from you again SFNZ.