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Firearms licensing: Buying and Transferring Firearms
When you first receive your Firearms Certificate, obviously there will be no weapons shown as possessed. However you will have the authorisations for the firearms you requested, and which were agreed by the police.
Remember, these are the only weapons that you can legally hold on your certificate.
You will also have authority to purchase the agreed quantity of ammunition for the calibre of the weapons shown. So you can now purchase the firearms authorised on your certificate, not only from a Registered Firearms Dealer, but also from other Firearm Certificate holders.
Remember the final handing over of the weapon must be in person, and the person transferring the firearm to you, must enter the details on the back of your Firearm Certificate. It is not you that enters the details, but the seller.
Remember the old maxim - you only write on your own certificate when you sign it!
Having acquired your firearm you must, within seven days, inform the police authority that issued your certificate of the transaction. The person transferring the firearm, if a certificate holder, must also inform his issuing authority.
Section 33 (3) of The Firearms Amendment Act 1997 requires that such notification shall:
- Contain a description of the firearm in question, (giving its identification number if any); and
- State the nature of the transaction and the name and address of the other party
And any such notice shall be sent by registered post or the recorded delivery service.
If this procedure is carried out properly, firearms should never go astray and a complete record should exist of their present and previous owners.
Similarly, when the time comes for you to dispose of one of your firearms to another certificate holder, you must enter the details of the transaction on the back of the purchaser's certificate. If you dispose of a firearm to a Registered Firearms Dealer, he will enter the transaction in his register - on this occasion you do not have any writing to do, except, in all cases to inform the issuing authority of your certificate.
It is not necessary to send in your certificate for such notifications.