Thread: Ammo storage.

Point out to these officious bastards that they are wrong! The law is the law, not some misguided, but possibly well-intentioned, personal opinion of a Police minion. All of your public-spirited intentions will not make a whit of difference.

If you disagree - you can aways go for a judicial review.

3 safes - That is nuts.

I recall the fuss a while back over them wanting a separate lock box for ammo - not allowed to be a lock box in the safe. Section 19-4-(b) does clarify the position nicely.

Interestingly absolutely no mention in the Act is made of keeping bolts separate - excepting their is a nutty clause that states - you must comply with whatever the Commissioner deems necessary.

Did Parliament truly decide to legislate tight controls, THEN hand the process over to a biased official??

However sometimes it is just easier to nod in agreement - though I do draw the line at three safes for bolts/ammo/rifle.

A steel 2 draw lockable filing cabinet makes a good ammo storage cheap as and plentiful

Originally Posted by gundoc

Your choice of course, but don't complain when you find you cannot buy a replacement bolt that got misplaced by doing something you didn't need to do! Don't buy into the 'public good' crap that is a smokescreen for the eventual abolition of privately owned firearms.

Good points!
And I still haven’t been able to remove the ‘bolt’ from my Finnwolf, I bet there’s a heap of other rifles with that issue.

Well hopefully in 7 months this farce will be repealed.

Originally Posted by OGM

I respect your technical expertise but this is a policy matter. From a practical point of view I would have been inclined to store it together because by my reckoning its in my safe. But the guidance here is clear. Both our local rural Policeman and the Arms Officer (who was the gatekeeper to me getting a license) said I should store my ammo and bolts in one place and my rifles in another.

The Arms Officer even confirmed their reasoning, namely, should a rifle get stolen a bad sort should not have enough items to go and commit a crime.

I'm not going to debate the point with them and also I agree I need to play my part for the "public good".



The guidance for them is to trigger lock.

So you would advise the Police that under the terms of their advice to LFO's - storing a set of firearms in a marked vehicle, with ammo would not past the "fit and proper" test? Surely that should be the standard by which the rest of us are judged against - or is it something to do with "public safety" whatever that can be interpreted to mean and that the Police to not want LFO's to think they can keep a firearm at a state of "ready use" in case of a home invasion?

My question here @OGM is - define for us what you are considering when you say "for the public good" in terms of firearm storage standards, and then compare this to the formation of a public facing website that stores owners names, address, storage equipment and their firearms that are stored in there overlaid with the administrating organisations history with technology project implementation and the likelihood of a data breach, and the consequences of that breach in terms of 'for the public good'?

I recall the case some years ago in Auckland, where the LFO arrived home after a dinner date, to find a ninja in his house. The LFO was horrified to see that the intruder was pointing his (the LFO's) bolt action rifle at him, and he noticed the bolt was in place, and he assumed the piece was loaded as he stored the bolt and ammo with the rifle.

I'm not interested in what the "regulations" state, or what your AO demands, or scoring points off the Police - all of my risk management strategies in life are based on "What if...?"

Originally Posted by Ranger 888

I recall the case some years ago in Auckland, where the LFO arrived home after a dinner date, to find a ninja in his house. The LFO was horrified to see that the intruder was pointing his (the LFO's) bolt action rifle at him, and he noticed the bolt was in place, and he assumed the piece was loaded as he stored the bolt and ammo with the rifle.

I'm not interested in what the "regulations" state, or what your AO demands, or scoring points off the Police - all of my risk management strategies in life are based on "What if...?"

The 'What If' is interesting - given enough time and resources any security will be defeated. The point of the exercise of security requirements is to prevent opportunistic access to firearms - objects allow a criminal to 'project force' - which is a fancy way of saying 'terrifying people from a distance and creating harm' which they can do without having to get close to their victims. The entire point of not keeping firearms in a state of 'ready use' is purely that - stops an opportunistic thief from gaining access to a complete ready to use firearm. If you take a partially disassembled firearm into a public space it's still going to create fear and be somewhat useful to a criminal without being able to be fired - but at least the criminal can't use the thing to reinforce their position.

Greatest point of risk for firearms owners is arguably not from a criminal unlawfully entering a property and stumbling over a safe, then being able to access it, then finding the ammo safe and also getting into that and then having the knowledge to assemble a firearm. Plenty more easier targets in your average firearm owners house that are also easier to move with less risk and higher profit. The greatest point of risk is (again arguably) from criminals targeting firearms for criminal purposes and deliberately entering the house of a known firearms owner, holding the occupants hostage and forcing the owner to open the safe(s) and hand over the components. In this regard, no security can be effective and that's one massive point of risk with creating a public facing shopping list of addresses associated with firearms.

From this, Gundoc's comments are 100% accurate - the desirability of fort knox level security from the regulator is OK from the purposes minimising casual unlawful access, but also arguably don't comply with some of the other statutes and regulations on the books in this country. For example, HSNO requires no storage of Class 1 DG (any quantity) in a dwelling house - yet in a lot of districts people report being told they aren't allowed to store ammo in an unattended building like a shed. Similarly, that act sets out that you shouldn't store Class 1 in a steel closed compartment without engineered blast release vents of sufficient size. Most ammo storage solutions I've seen (cheap chinese-made safes etc) don't have this feature. Go to the laws, work out what complies and do that and if you want to go over the minimum for compliance that's nice too but not at the expense of busting some other law.

Don't just blindly do what the regulator's representative tells you as you have no idea what their background is and if they've delved deep into everything else that sets down the requirements - unfortunately this is something that when you start a new regulator up happens a lot, it takes time to put the compliance packages together in such a way that they cover every item of law and that process is also expensive (research, lawyers consultants etc). Firearms regulators are under the pump, short enforced timeframes, lack of staffing, arguably insufficient funding, massive pressure from every angle to either do more, do less, do it different, or just do it to someone else it would seem. None of which is a good recipe for getting things right...

No 3 's reference in the second paragraph to a LFO being held hostage is pertinent to all of us...have you thought about how you would deal with this? I have come up with a strategy for this eventuality..it didn't take long to think it through.

My interviewer said ammo must be stored in a locked box inside another locked compartment. So having ammo in the small lockable compartment inside your locked gun safe is acceptable. Obviously they must have different keys that are not together.

Originally Posted by muzza

My understanding is that firearms and ammunition shall be stored "separately".

Any fond desire by your inspecting person - who likely is only a contractor to the police and not a sworn officer - for you to build a mini Fort Knox is not a requirement under the current Arms Act. Exceeding the minimum standard is good ,going overboard when not legally required is simply silly - and unnecessary

Although now that the new Firearms Regulatory Authority (or whatever the te reo name is ) has 470 staff, maybe the inspectors are now all sworn staff, Muzza? Does anyone on this Forum know for sure?

https://www.police.govt.nz/sites/def...e-guidance.pdf

For clarity on storage I think if you were to refer to NZ Police's own document on storage you'd be on solid ground with any Arms officer/inspector. It shows pictures of ammo in the separate compartment of the main safe as acceptable so worth debating with them I reckon.
Initially I was told ammo had to be in a separate locked box in a separate room but that's clearly not the case rather it's an individual's own interpretation.

Originally Posted by Ranger 888

Although now that the new Firearms Regulatory Authority (or whatever the te reo name is ) has 470 staff, maybe the inspectors are now all sworn staff, Muzza? Does anyone on this Forum know for sure?

To be sworn you have to have gone to Police College for their 16 week course.....so no, I doubt that more than a handful or two of the 470 staff are sworn Police officers: They are still trying to stem the flow of sworn constables leaving by poking more in the front end. They won't have 'spares' floating about for the new Authority.

Just meet the storage requirements as written into Law, exceed them if you are so inclined but if there are any issues I have always asked the "Vetter" to have the local Arms Officer follow up and confirm. We were lucky as for a long time here in Nelson we had a bloody good AO who followed the letter of the law to the letter.

The reality is originally the regulations were to stop opportune thieves and children getting easy access. Now we are supposed take extra extra extra precautions to stop criminals committing illegal acts on or stealing peoples private property which is surely the job of you know who!!

Personally I take all possible precautions as I like to keep my valuable stuff safe like most

I look at it this way...I would be gutted if some lowlife broke open my safe and stole my guns,I would be absolutely horrified if they managed to use them to kill someone...so its broken down and stored seperately......in logical place so I dont forget where LOL.