Thread: Anyone a member of SSANZ or The NZ NSA?

In answer to the last few replies to this thread:

@Savage1: Im not sure what in your opinion is a 'prohibited weapon'. As far as I am aware, the only weapons that are prohibited in NZ are anti-personnel mines and cluster munitions. NSA does not encourage people to bury anti-personnel mines or cluster munitions. Anyone in possession of such prohibited weapons ought to hand them into the nearest arms office or MoD bomb disposal unit.

I am not aware that it is an offence to encourage a person to bury something. If you can direct me to the section of the Summary Proceedings Act, Arms Act or Crimes Act that sets out a penal offence for encouraging a third party to bury something I would be interested to check that out. I am not aware that a firearms licence can be revoked for any reason other than the licence holder being considered not fit and proper to hold such a licence.

Most DC case and all High Court cases involving the Arms Act are reviewed by me as the president of NSA and I have never seen any case where a judge has convicted a person for unlawful possession of a firearm that they have preserved in cosmoline and buried in the ground.


@Ryan, Toby, Savage 270 & Savage1: The term "possession" has a complex, somewhat flexible but certainly unique meaning for the purposes of the Arms Act 1983. New Zealand cases such as Coorey v Police and Roberts v Police have established, for example, that "possession" has a different meaning for the purposes of the Misuse of Drugs Act and the Arms Act. Sullivan v Earl of Caithness (1976) is presumably a UK case that does not concern the NZ Arms Act; it is therefore not applicable.

There is no hard and fast meaning as to 'possession' for the purpose of the NZ Arms Act. An indicator may be a case (I have forgotten the citation but its widely known) about a civilian gun owner that had a sporting semi-automatic in his safe and a couple of normal capacity 30 round magazines were discovered in a space above his HWC. He was found guilty of unlawful possession of a MSSA. The Judge noted that the material fact on which the case turned was that both the rifle and the magazines were found in the same residential property. The Judge noted that had the rifle and the magazines been stored in different locations, so they were not immediately 'at hand' then the charge of possession of an MSSA would almost certainly not be sustained. This case would seem to indicate that even if a person has ownership of a firearm or parts thereof, and knows where to retrieve it from, if that is a remote location; such that the firearm or parts are not immediately at hand, then there is no possession.


All NZ legislation is required to be interpreted purposively (s5.1 IA 1999) and the purpose of the Arms Act is to control firearms and ensure public saftey. The primary concern which is repeated by members of our legislature ad nauseum is keeping guns out of the wrong hands. That of course strongly suggests that guns in the right hands or no hands at all are not the mischief which the Arms Act and it's regulations are aimed at. If the right hands disposses themselves of a gun pending a change in the legal landscape, and the right hands then repatriate that gun, it would seem that the working purpose of the Arms Act is met.

Hope this helps explain the position

Kind regards
Richard Lincoln