Thread: Steps involved to get youth firearms licence ?

My son turns 16 in October and wanting to know if he is able to start his “long journey” to obtaining his FAL before hand with the safety course etc?
With the time it takes nowadays can he start before 16 and get this under way sooner than later? He’s has been hunting since 5 and wants to be able to go with his mates in future, which I fully back as he is ultra safe etc - sadly always correcting me


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When my daughter did hers a few years back you put the paperwork in and then got the invite to go on a course. Can’t remember if she had the interviews before or after the course.

In the process of doing mine right now. I sent my paperwork in and expected an email back with a special code so I could book my course and didn't receive anything for a month, so over a period of 4ish months I emailed them numerous times with no reply. Finally got a reply and booked my course which I completed a month and a half ago. They dude there said with a smile on his face "sometime in the near future we'll get a call about booking the police to come talk to references etc" and I haven't had a call since so I presume sending people out to do the checks is the main hold up in getting a license right now.

If you do get stuck on this phone them!
https://www.police.govt.nz/advice-se...ety/contact-us
Be polite but firm.
I gave them a month when going for my visitors permit. Then applied the pressure….with no overseas number I was calling the PHQ, which was rather funny. Took me 3 goes just did not take no for answer. Just be polite the person that your talking to is not the cause of licensing problems.

Do make sure that you know what exactly you are talking about read everything twice tree times and also take notes on who you talk to and when!
Get them also to email you so you have a paper trail.

Last of all, you catch more bees with honey. If you can get of to a good start with them happy days. Just know your stuff, paper trail paper trail photograph it all and put it in a cloud or file it in a safe place.

Good luck with them getting there license

Oh they might say that there’s a huge waiting time your reply to that should be something along the lines of
“Yes I understand that but police have promised to improve this”.

They even stated this in the media and at the agm with police, nzda, COLOF and other interested parties.

Ps could someone throw up that link please cheers

To answer the OP's question your son can't start the process while he's 15... he needs to submit the application once he turns 16

Originally Posted by Seventenths

To answer the OP's question your son can't start the process while he's 15... he needs to submit the application once he turns 16

Exactly what we were told by our firearms officer .
My daughter is chomping at the bit to get hers as well.

yea you cant start the process till your 16 and it matters on the area and how many applicants as it took about 3 weeks for me to hear back after putting the application in and the overall process took 6 months for me but it was delayed as they required a new referee from me which took a few weeks to get sorted.

Originally Posted by matthewhall2912

yea you cant start the process till your 16 and it matters on the area and how many applicants as it took about 3 weeks for me to hear back after putting the application in and the overall process took 6 months for me but it was delayed as they required a new referee from me which took a few weeks to get sorted.

As I understand it you now can't start the process until the applicant is 16 years old (I could be wrong).

When my son applied for his license a few years ago he did everything before his 16th birthday.
He got his FAL and learner driver's license on the day of his 16th birthday.

I told him both were license to kill, more likely to kill people with the driver's license.