“It was locked in the shed”: how licensed firearm owners end up charged in NSW
The people charged with firearms offences in NSW are not who most readers picture. A very large proportion are licensed, law-abiding owners – farmers, recreational shooters, collectors, pest controllers – who fell foul of a storage requirement, a licence condition, or a change in circumstances they did not realise had consequences.
The penalties do not reflect that. Firearms offences in NSW carry maximums measured in years, the legislation was tightened again in 2026, and a conviction ends your ability to hold a licence. Understanding where the traps sit is worth considerably more than assuming that being licensed protects you.
The core offences
The Firearms Act 1996 (NSW) contains the framework. Section 7 makes it an offence to possess or use a pistol without a licence or permit authorising that possession or use, with a maximum penalty of 14 years. Section 7A creates the equivalent offence for firearms generally, carrying five years. Section 36 deals with possessing unregistered firearms, and where the firearm is a pistol or prohibited firearm the maximum is 14 years.
Then the storage provisions, which catch more licensed owners than anything else. Section 39 requires the holder of a licence or permit to take all reasonable precautions to ensure safe keeping, and to comply with the applicable safe storage requirements – a locked receptacle of hardened steel or timber of specified construction, secured so it cannot readily be removed, with ammunition stored separately in a locked container.
The word to notice is reasonable. This is not a technical infringement regime. A person who leaves a rifle in a vehicle, hands one to an unlicensed friend to hold, or stores ammunition in the same cabinet has committed a criminal offence, regardless of intention and regardless of whether anything happened.
The situations that generate charges
Five recur. Storage discovered during a police inspection – and NSW Police conduct safe storage inspections of licence holders, so the risk is not hypothetical. Lending a firearm to an unlicensed person, however briefly and however trusted. Firearms left behind at a property after a relationship breakdown or an estate transfer, where nobody currently in possession holds a licence. Registration lapses, where a firearm was acquired years ago and the paperwork was never completed. And ammunition possession without the corresponding licence.
A sixth is the most consequential of all. Where an apprehended violence order is made, a firearms licence is automatically revoked and any firearms must be surrendered. NSW Police confirm in their licensing guidance that an interim order triggers suspension and a final order revocation, and that firearms and the licence must be surrendered immediately. Failing to surrender is a separate offence – and it happens constantly, because people served with an order are dealing with a great deal at once and nobody explains the firearms consequence clearly. The interaction is set out in our material on AVO matters and their consequences.
What changed in 2026
The legislative direction is one way. The organised crime reforms that passed NSW Parliament in 2026 increased penalties for discharging firearms in public places and strengthened the framework around firearms supply, alongside new offences targeting the destruction of vehicles used in serious crimes and the recruitment of children.
For licensed owners the practical significance is indirect but real: an enforcement environment focused on illicit firearms produces more inspections, more scrutiny of registration records, and less tolerance for administrative non-compliance that would once have attracted a warning.
Prohibited firearms, parts and the things people do not realise are regulated
The Act regulates considerably more than complete working firearms. Firearm parts are regulated in their own right, and possessing a part without the relevant authority is an offence even where no functioning firearm exists. Barrels, receivers, magazines above prescribed capacities, and suppressors all attract their own treatment.
Imitation firearms are also captured, and this catches people badly. A replica, a gel blaster in some configurations, a deactivated firearm, or a theatrical prop can fall within the definitions depending on its characteristics. The intuition that something is not a real gun and therefore not a real offence is simply wrong.
Antiques and heirlooms are a related trap. A firearm inherited from a grandparent, kept in a cupboard for decades and never fired, is an unregistered firearm in the possession of an unlicensed person unless a specific exemption applies. Every year people are charged after voluntarily raising exactly such an item with police. If you have discovered a firearm in an estate or a property you have acquired, get advice about how to deal with it lawfully before contacting anyone – there are proper routes, and taking the wrong one creates the offence.
Where the defences are
Possession is the first and most important. Possession requires knowledge and control, and it is genuinely contestable where a firearm was located in a shared shed, a deceased estate, an inherited property, a rental garage or a vehicle used by several people. Being the owner of the premises is not the same as being in possession of what is in them.
Reasonable precautions is the second. Section 39 does not impose absolute liability – it requires all reasonable precautions, and what is reasonable is assessed on the circumstances. Where a cabinet was compliant but a lock failed, or where a firearm was in transit between lawful locations, the position is arguable.
The lawfulness of the search is the third. Firearms are frequently located during searches conducted for other reasons, and where entry or search exceeded the powers in the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act), exclusion of the evidence is available.
And in matters where liability is not in issue, outcome remains very much in play. Our case study on an unauthorised firearm use matter finalised without conviction shows what a properly prepared sentencing application can achieve – which matters enormously here, because a conviction is what ends a licence. The alternatives are set out in our guide to primary sentencing outcomes in NSW.
If police have attended
Comply with any direction to surrender firearms and the licence – non-compliance is a fresh offence and there is nothing to be gained by it. But do not give an account of how or why firearms were stored as they were, or who else had access, before getting advice. Those answers go directly to possession and to reasonable precautions, as our article on the reality of the right to silence in NSW explains. Nor should you offer a false or partial explanation, which creates its own offence, as our article on false information and obstruction charges sets out.
Where charges are withdrawn or dismissed, costs may be recoverable, as our guide to costs in NSW criminal cases explains.
Contact Us
A firearms charge is not an administrative matter with a fine attached. It carries maximums of up to 14 years, it ends a licence on conviction, and the most common route into it is a storage or surrender requirement that a responsible owner simply did not know applied to them.
At National Criminal Lawyers, we defend firearms possession, registration, storage and surrender charges across NSW. We test possession properly, we run search lawfulness arguments where they exist, and where the facts are not in dispute we build the sentencing case that protects your ability to hold a licence again.
Call us at 1800 CRIM LAW for a free consultation. Help us help you understand your situation and get you the best outcome possible.
