Rushed firearms legislation and arbitrary ownership caps in New South Wales have severely affected the state’s contribution to Australia’s permanent National Firearms Amnesty, leaving unregistered “grey market” firearms hidden in the community and threatening public safety, the Shooting Industry Foundation of Australia (SIFA) has warned.

The impact of the new legislation introduced in 2025 has been immediate. Data collated by SIFA comparing the first half of 2025 to the first half of 2026 reveals the successful initiative in NSW grinding to a halt:

• Total Amnesty Surrenders: Dropped by 32.4% (from 1,307 to just 884).
• Surrenders to Dealers: Plummeted by 40.4% (from 1,027 to 612).
• Finalised Permits to Acquire (PTAs): Collapsed by 56.9% (from 37,680 to 16,242).
• PTA Submissions: Dropped by 30.5% (from 39,925 to 27,749)

SIFA Chief Executive Officer James Walsh warned that creating barriers to participating in the amnesty meant grey market firearms risk being lost, stolen, and fed into illegal markets.

“Total surrenders have fallen by nearly a third in just twelve months. Instead of getting guns off the street, these rushed laws have created the exact conditions that keep unregistered firearms hidden away in farm sheds and under beds, entirely out of sight of the authorities,” Mr Walsh said.

“This is exactly what happens when you don’t consult.”

“The fundamental idea of the amnesty was to allow people to legalise unregistered firearms and bring them into a safe, regulated space. Now, this legislation has created a massive hurdle for participation.”

Mr Walsh said the amnesty’s historical success relied heavily on practical incentives. Unregistered firearms often inherited estate items or historical pieces carry significant intrinsic, heirloom, or monetary value.

“People were surrendering these firearms because they had a pathway to either keep them legally or get a fair commercial return for them through a licensed dealer,” he said.

“Clearly, an arbitrary cap stops those who want to do the right thing from doing so. If a licensed owner is already at their cap, they cannot legally retain their grandfather’s heirloom .303. Because the legitimate market is choked, dealers cannot take them in to on-sell them either.”

Image: Many amnesty firearms are inherited, with the amnesty being a pathway to legally preserve and register historic items. (Image: SIFA)

While amnesty hand-ins were already experiencing a gradual decline, the latest data revealed a drastic collapse immediately following the introduction of the new laws.

Numbers highlighted the scale of the failure across two critical metrics:

• Year-on-Year Drop (32.1%): Hand-ins fell from 1,307 (Jan–Jun 2025) to just 884 (Jan–Jun 2026), proving this is not a seasonal fluctuation.
• Sequential Drop (50.2%): Compared to the immediate preceding six months, 1769 firearms were handed in from Jul–Dec 2025, whilst hand-ins plummeted by roughly half, to 884 from January to June 2026, following Bondi.

If participation had simply maintained its previous six-month rate, over 700 additional firearms would should been brought into the system. Instead, reactive, poorly consulted legislation has achieved the exact opposite of its intended goal: actively discouraging compliance and leaving hundreds of firearms hidden in the community.

NSW Police firearms registry data illustrates this drop:

A survey of participants from the 2017 amnesty conducted by Australian Border Force (ABF) showed – overwhelmingly – that the key motivation of those taking part was the pathway to legitimate registration, with 53% of respondents listing this as their primary motivating factor of taking part.

This was followed by civic responsibility (28%), not needing the firearm (17%), or to avoid prosecution (11%).

With those incentives now destroyed by quotas and a dysfunctional Permit to Acquire process that has blown out to more than 120 days in NSW, the system is failing.

“Instead of getting these grey market guns off the street, these reactive laws have created the exact conditions that keep firearms hidden away in farm sheds and under beds, entirely out of sight of the authorities,” Mr Walsh said.

“It is a textbook example of the unintended consequences of not approaching this legislation with the firearms industry at the table.”

Mr Walsh issued a stark warning to other jurisdictions looking at similar legislation.

“If further states adopt these arbitrary limits, it will completely reduce the efficacy of the national amnesty framework. It guarantees that unregistered firearms will simply be left in the community,” he said.

NSW Premier Chris Minns’ claims that his NSW buyback will ‘remove over 270,000 firearms’ from highly vetted license holders. In the first year of operation, the national amnesty successfully processed 57,324 firearms nationwide, 24,831 of those in NSW. Unlike those firearms targeted by the buyback however, these firearms were otherwise completely off police radars.

Mr Walsh warned that rushing laws through without consultation had destroyed the trust amnesty participants relied on when coming forward.

“If the government is prepared to treat highly vetted, compliant firearm owners with suspicion and arbitrary caps, the public incentive to voluntarily walk into a dealership or police station evaporates,” he said.

The 2017 report published by the Australian Border Force credited the success of the amnesty program to the “large scale collaboration” between government, law enforcement, firearms dealers and industry groups working with community and public health organisations.

“Working with the shooting industry has helped bring tens of thousands of firearms into the regulated system, showing that when government consults with industry, everyone benefits,” Mr Walsh said.

“In government’s own words, the amnesty is a genuine safety mechanism for all Australians. We can’t let it fail because of rushed policies and trying to gain political points.”

For further information please contact:
James Walsh
CEO
Shooting Industry Foundation of Australia
M: 0419 933 066
E: james.walsh@sifa.net.au