COLFO Slams Gun Control NZ's Victim-Blaming Comments as 'Appalling' and Demands Public Apology from Co-Founder Hera Cook

Press Release 8 October 2025

The Council of Licensed Firearm Owners (COLFO) today expressed profound outrage at comments from Gun Control NZ (GCNZ) and its co-founder, Dr Hera Cook, a senior lecturer in the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago, that seek to blame victims of a heartbreaking burglary for their own trauma, all in service of a political agenda.

In response to a recent NZ Herald article detailing how methamphetamine-addicted Nathaniel Scott stole 12 firearms worth $14,500 from his relatives' home, leaving the family (including young children) terrified and betrayed, Dr Cook remarked:

"The failure is projected outwards. So the children are afraid of bad men and the family experience themselves totally as victims - according to the article. No questions about why the father needed an arsenal." This rhetoric dismisses the very real suffering of a law-abiding family who did nothing wrong, as even GCNZ concedes, and instead implies their legitimate ownership of firearms somehow contributed to the crime.

"This is textbook victim-blaming, twisted for political gain," said COLFO spokesperson Hugh Devereux-Mack. "The family isn't 'experiencing themselves as victims' – they are victims of a criminal high on meth who violated their trust and home. Imagine applying Cook's logic to any other serious crime: telling a sexual assault survivor they're merely 'projecting failure outwards' or questioning a murder victim's family about why they 'needed' to live in that neighbourhood. It would be outrageous, minimising the horror and shifting blame onto the innocent. The parents and their traumatised children, who now live in fear asking 'Is the bad man coming back?', deserve compassion, not this callous dismissal."

Devereux-Mack added: "Cook's comments are akin to the infamous question posed to assault victims, 'What were you wearing?', and have no place in 2025, let alone from someone with a research background in sexual harassment and discrimination against women at a respected institution like the University of Otago. Dr Cook should know better than to victim-blame. We call on Cook and GCNZ to issue a public apology to this family for her distasteful statement. And we ask: Does the University of Otago endorse victim-blaming or the extreme positions of its staff's anti-gun advocacy group?"

COLFO views these remarks as a cynical distraction from the real scandal exposed by the theft: despite pistols in New Zealand being required to be recorded against the owner's name since the 1920's, police have recovered only one of the 10 stolen semi-automatic handguns, a Glock pistol, leaving the rest in criminal hands.

"Ultimately, this isn't about legal ownership or firearms collectors, GCNZ and their founder are blaming the victims of crime to distract from the glaring failure of the firearms registry system they championed" Devereux-Mack said.

"A national register doesn't prevent thefts. It creates a vulnerability in the safe and secure storage of firearms by listing targets with valuable collections."

GCNZ's broader logic, that law-abiding Kiwis should have their freedoms curtailed lest they become victims of crime, and that their victimhood might somehow 'detrimentally' impact others, is not only lacking in basic human decency but also utterly discredits the group from any credible role in discussions on fair and effective firearm laws.

"We won't stand by while everyday hunters and collectors are scapegoated to push an agenda while also revictimizing licensed firearm owners and their families who have done nothing wrong," Devereux-Mack concluded. "New Zealand deserves better than this divisive nonsense."