The Australian Capital Territory has announced it will follow the lead set by NSW on new firearm laws, including introducing limits on how many guns its licensed shooters can own.
ACT Police Minister Dr Marisa Paterson announced the capital will implement “standard” limits of five guns for shooters, with 10 for competition shooters and primary producers.
The Firearms (Public Safety) Amendment Bill 2026, which will be introduced to the ACT Legislative Assembly this week, also recategorises several firearm types “including introducing limits on magazine capacity and rapid-fire weapons”. This likely refers to essentially banning straight-pull and lever/button release firearms by moving them to Category C (unobtainable for most shooters), and limiting magazines to 10 rounds, as NSW is doing.
The Bill will also create a new offence of possessing a digital blueprint used to produce firearms or firearm parts.
The ABC reports there are 7,000 firearms licenceholders in the ACT, who collectively own about 22,000 guns; approximately 20% of those licence holders have more than five guns.
Shooters Union president Graham Park said while it was not surprising the ACT was adopting NSW’s laws, it was still disappointing given there was no evidence backing the laws in the first place.
“They don’t really have much choice since the ACT is totally surrounded by NSW, but we’d respect them a lot more if they just admitted that outright rather than making a bunch of obviously untrue comments about ‘improving public safety’ and so on,” he said.
“There’s no evidence that limits on how many firearms someone can own genuinely benefits public safety, and it is very, very clear these changes are being done for political reasons.”
He also criticised the lack of consultation with the shooting industry over the laws, saying they were not being introduced in good faith and were based on flawed, ideologically driven agendas.
“NSW openly stated they refused to consult with the shooting community over their laws when they rammed them through just before Christmas, and WA went out of its way to tell shooters it hated them and held them in utter contempt before it passed their laws last year, then did the same thing when pressured into a review.
“It is ludicrous for the ACT to pretend they’re adopting some well-researched and thought out public safety initiative when really they’re just doing what they want to do because it suits their political purposes.”
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