True, guns are pretty common in rural NZ (not in the cities), but there are pretty comprehensive regulations about what sort of guns they can be. Shotguns and airguns used as tools for farm use are common, rifles (some quite high-powered) are legal for hunters *provided the owners have a licence and store them in locked cabinets at home*. Also true, quite a lot of rural NZ'ers aren't too bothered about paperwork, so sometimes licences get a little out of date.

But most rural NZ'ers are very careful and professional about their gun use. Society here doesn't like the thought of turning guns on people. There are enough bloody stupid drunk hunters out in the hills to make accidental shootings a serious problem here. Four or five people a year get accidentally shot dead or seriously wounded by their mates.

Guns are not able to be legally used in political protests. People are not allowed to use automatic weapons at random out in the woods. It simply isn't legal. And Hone Heke and his lunatic crew are looked down on by most Maori, not to mention the rest of the pakeha society here.

Perhaps JC, you are forgetting (or ignoring the fact) that NZ society has spent over a billion dollars in the last few years going through a unique legal, politically-voted process of truth-and-reconciliation and settlement compensation for wrongs done to the Maori in the colonial era. Most iwi (tribes) have settled, or are in the process of settling, their compensation claims through a legal process and there simply is no need for posturing of the type espoused by Hone Heke.

Me, I'm a relative newcomer to NZ. I *have* read up the history, but don't feel qualified to posture about it in the way you seem to be doing.

And no, I don't approve of the "round-up-the-usual-suspects" attitude of the police. It did happen and it was reprehensible. My point was that most of the police cases were quickly thrown out by the judiciary and they had their knuckles firmly rapped for it, which they deserved.

Which is why I say that if you are trying to make some big deal out of the Urawera prosecutions and imply that there has been some kind of miscarriage of NZ justice (or anything more sinister), think again.