Thread: The Law - any clarity?

I think all the reply's are correct eg ; inform your neighbours, etc and I don't think there is a right or wrong answer around this topic while the firearms code is so grey.
Every thing is a "goat fuck", topics on how to leave or not your firearms in your vehicle, different ideas on the safe storage of firearms, on and on it goes. Like savage says (elsewhere), we are properly over reading the situation and if common sense is applied there should be no problem's and if there is it should be an easy fix, this may be correct but I would think it would apply more so in the larger rural environments more so than the spreading life style blocks. With more and more immigrates and townies (no offence) moving in to these areas its getting harder harder, as hamsav said.....they move into areas where there has been noise for years and then go out of there way to try and shut it down.

How hard would it be to implement some hard and fast rules; No shooting on blocks under 5 acres unless you have a 300m shooting range with appropriate back stops and not shooting in the direction of houses. You must be 100m away from the closest neighbour unless you have there consent. You may shoot from your boundary if it is on a public road. you may not shoot towards a road. you may leave your firearm in an unattended vehicle if it is out off sight and the vehicles is locked for short durations (for when you need to take a shit or go and see a farmer). Wouldn't that help to get rid of all the hear-say?

you don't want hard and fast rules... they will cost you too much, they will be difficult to police, they will get it wrong. There will be no benefit, it will be more restrictive.

We are talking about the use of firearms, not a chainsaw. Nuisance don't kill anybody. To expect neighbours to not be concerned about the unexpected firearm use is not only unrealistic, its probably also undesirable- for everybody.

A higher population in the country aint the same as the good old days. We didn't have 4ha lifestylers in the good old days. The world has changed. I would suggest that it is unrealistic to expect to be able to use your firearms on small holdings without talking to your neighbours about it beforehand.

Originally Posted by hamsav

I have just had a bit of this , whilst being processed for a change of address , the ( retired ) guy got all theatrical and emotional ( seriously .... this guy should be on stage ) about the storage of bolts/mags in the separately lockable ( different key )storage locker at the top of my ( Buffalo River ) gun safe . He got all hysterical and insisted that I find another place for them, things got worse when I challenged him to show me ( in the arms act ) where it says that the bolts cannot be stored in such a safe ( which according to both the A O and the honcho at Hunting and fishing ) which has been "passed " as suitable storage for rifles and bolts by the police , anyhow , to keep him happy the bolts were put in another ( barely ) lockable cupboard that my cat could have broken in to .... until I was able to confirm that the separate locker in my main safe IS suitable and acceptable for bolt / mag storage .

That guys just a fucking wanker, he'd flip out if he saw my safes, semi's, semi's everywhere. Bolts all in my bolt action guns, I'm not mixing them up, I'd spend too long matching them back up.

Originally Posted by Sidney

you don't want hard and fast rules... they will cost you too much, they will be difficult to police, they will get it wrong. There will be no benefit, it will be more restrictive.

We are talking about the use of firearms, not a chainsaw. Nuisance don't kill anybody. To expect neighbours to not be concerned about the unexpected firearm use is not only unrealistic, its probably also undesirable- for everybody.

A higher population in the country aint the same as the good old days. We didn't have 4ha lifestylers in the good old days. The world has changed. I would suggest that it is unrealistic to expect to be able to use your firearms on small holdings without talking to your neighbours about it beforehand.

Yeah because we're always having mass shootings so all gunfire in a rural area is something we should always be listening out to call the police for right?

You must have missed the bit... where I said "unexpected" or "unexplained"

You must have missed the bit about small blocks and lifestylers... you'd have to be a complete walloper to think that they are still rural areas.... they are just large subdivisions. And they are populated by town people who predominantly don't understand firearms.

Carping on about about how everybody else should view the world, seems to miss the obvious.... they don't see it the way that you do. And guess what, the law says that you have to be aware of the people that are around you, and the law says that you have to not endanger, frighten or annoy them.

Don't you get that?

If you don't, the police will come and take your firearms away, and frankly I would think that that would be a good idea.

You nailed that one Sydney!
Its pretty black and white.

Hi all,
A couple of nice takeaways here.
1) email neighbours so in writing and be clear with some details.
2) cover your arse if shooting near public place or dwellings by notifying police.
Thanks to all ... keep safe in the hills ... and near the neighbours ... cheers Gunzrrr

Originally Posted by Gunzrrr

I was out shooting last night with a mate on his lifestyle block (20acres). No issues - but the neighbour came over for a beer afterwards (he heard us even on subsonic .22) and we started to discuss where can you legally shoot or rather not shoot. The law refers to "built up areas" ... what does this really mean? If I'm on 20 acres I'm okay unless I'm beside 2x1 acre house plots. Are there any facts or stats or is it a subjective situation based on basic firearm safety principles.
Any coppers or experts out there willing to share their legal thoughts? Facts please ... cheers Gunzrrr

Im on 25 acres in carterton and most of my neighbours shoot, clays one side and rifles the other. i have a range to 300 yds and no one has complained about the noise. Until i blasted a large stump, 6 complaints.

Thats great... pretty much destroys her credibility for future complaints... Insist that she be prosecuted for making a false complaint...

Every person commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 months or to a fine not exceeding $3,000 or to both who, without reasonable cause, discharges a firearm, airgun, pistol, or restricted weapon in or near—
(a)a dwellinghouse; or
(b)a public place,—
so as to endanger property or to endanger, annoy, or frighten any person.

My reading of that section is that if you have a reasonable cause to discharge a firearm and someone is annoyed or frightened, then it is their bad luck. I think it is written so that you cannot use a firearm to deliberately annoy or scare a person/your neighbours.

Sighting your rifle in, shooting clay pigeons is a reasonable cause.

I know a guy that went around his neighbours and told them he was going to be regularly shooting on his property, if they objected he told them he would by a motocross bike and ride around on his land for hours on end.

AOS trying to interpret legislation then injecting their own ideas really hacks me off... That whole "bolt separate" BS grinds my gears. I too had an argument with the Wellington AO - I refused to separate my bolts and mags. He left in a huff with nothing to say, he knew I was right!

The dude who did my change of address here in HB was great though. Such a huge contrast.


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Originally Posted by Dougie

AOS trying to interpret legislation then injecting their own ideas really hacks me off... That whole "bolt separate" BS grinds my gears. I too had an argument with the Wellington AO - I refused to separate my bolts and mags. He left in a huff with nothing to say, he knew I was right!

The dude who did my change of address here in HB was great though. Such a huge contrast.


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The guy who done all my interviews were great, but the guy who done my change of address... Well, he wasn't horrible, but had no clue wtf he was doing or looking at.

What people really want to know when they hear gunshots is that you are shooting safely and that there won't be any rounds accidentally heading their way. Given the average standard of firearms safely and the number of shot up road signs this is a real concern.

My attitude to shooting around buildings changed after I did a whole lot of gambird hunting. Last weekend I was invited to shoot a irrigation pond so we sat on top of a stop bank, in clear view of the road (as we were ellevated). On the other side of the pond was the farmers house, farm buildings, workers etc. You know the safe shooting zones so you don't shoot when the duck is flying directly in front of a tractor etc. Mid morning a gaggle of cyclists rode past presumably admiring how manly we were while engaging in our manly hobby with our unpinned semi autos.

I have shot birds right next to:
Roads in rush hour traffic
The main passenger train line (we only have one).
The main state highway
Livestock
Farm buildings
Farm workers

As long as you know the lethal range of your firearm, where everything is and in which direactions you can and can not shoot then anything is possible. Nobody ever bats an eye cos they know what hunting is all about and we live in paradise.

A number of years back I worked for the Hamilton city council over the summer holidays. They had a rabbit problem in the rose gardens, we were spotlighting from a ute, about 60m from Cobham Drive and close to the glasshouses. Police were told beforehand. We had no visits from the police.

I knew that it is not okay to shoot near houses (it's a rather common sense), so I choose to go into my garage and practice target shooting with my SR9 C. It is only a matter of time when gun laws change and you end up getting your gun license revoked.

Very interesting topic. I shall chime in. The below should not be taken as legal advise and only general comment.

In order to convict under S 48 of the Arms Act the prosecution must prove 3 things: 1, a firearm was discharged, 2, the discharge was within "near proximity" of a dwelling house, and 3, people in the dwelling house is scared as a result.

There are 2 leading cases. Carter v Police AP128/95 and New Zealand Police v O'Byrne DC Christchurch CRN12009003074, 5 November 2012. O'Byrne was appealed thrice and all higher courts affirmed DC judgment and Court of Appeal consider the issue of "near dweling" is well settled by then:

"[7] The first was whether the discharge of the firearm occurred “near a dwelling house”. Both the District Court Judge and the High Court Judge applied well settled law in determining that the location at which the shot was fired was near to the neighbour's residence and that this element of the offence was therefore established. The law in this regard is well settled and Mr O'Byrne's real issue is the way in which the law was applied to the facts of the case. There is nothing in this point which could bring it within s 144(3)."

The O'Byrne DC judgment referred to Carter:

"[39] The case of Carter v NZ Police was one which concerned neighbours who had a highly conflictual relationship and Fisher J held that, in the particular circumstances in which the firearm was used, the nearness aspect of the offence was proven even though the dwelling house was some 80 or 90 metres away.
[40] In the current case, Mr O'Byrne discharged a shotgun right on the boundary of his neighbour's property. The evidence is that the Kraak home was approximately 70 metres from the boundary fence and the photographs show that between the home and the fence is a horse shed which is used for hay, equipment and sometimes as stables. Mr Kraak says that the family frequently use it."

So really, Carter is what everyone refers to.

But my reading of Carter is that the judge used the fact that the complaint's family was frightened and that the defendant intended to frighten them as the basis for the finding that the shot was fired within near proximity:

"The next ground of appeal was that the Judge was unjustified in accepting that the shots were fired sufficiently close to the Ross/Clothier house as to satisfy the nearness requirement of s 48. There are many details in support of that general contention. These embrace, among other things, an objection to the rebuttal evidence. It may well be that the prosecution had not established a technical foundation for rebuttal evidence here but in my view one can leapfrog across all of this aspect of the case because even if one approaches the case on the basis that the appellant was the distance he said he was from the dwelling-house in question, it seems to me that in the circumstances of this case it could still properly be said that the firearm had been discharged “near” a dwelling-house. The word “near” in s 48 must be directly related I think to the purpose of the legislation and all the surrounding circumstances in which the firearm has been discharged.
In the present case the context was that there had been this background of animosity between the two households which at flared up again on the day in question. For a person to make his first action after coming home to his premises to pick up a firearm and go outside and start firing it at night with no warning seems to me to be inherently likely to cause fright or annoyance to someone who is the other protagonist in a dispute sitting in a house only some 80 or 90 metres away. So it seems to me that the “nearness” aspect of the offence was proved even accepting all the other defence contentions in that regard."

Hmm... does this sound right? Whether the complaint is frightened and whether the shot was fired in proximity are two separate limbs of the charge and one should not be used to prove the other. The essence of this passage is that as long as you intended to frighten someone and that someone is frightened by your shot, the proximity requirement is always met. While I think this may be justifiable as a matter of fairness but I cannot agree that is the statutory elements of the charge.

The possibly unintended effect of Carter is that 90 meters is near enough, as such in O'Byrne, 70 meters is considered close enough.