While Labor state and federal governments and police commissioners are breaking their necks to disarm the country in textbook Communist style and with Bondi now shaping up as yet another psyop in shades of Port Arthur, police have rarely disclosed how many firearms are stolen from legitimate owners or lost by police each year.
Victoria Police lose firearms
Victoria Police has lost track of hundreds of firearms over the years due to poor record-keeping, notably nearly 200 in a 2010 audit and over 100,000 listed as missing (lost/stolen/destroyed) by 2021, though these figures include many legally-owned guns from the public, not just police armouries, with high theft rates of licensed firearms fuelling the issue across Australia.
- 2010 Audit: Victoria Police discovered they couldn’t account for around 186 firearms (out of 10,000) owned by VicPol due to bad record-keeping, though police believed they weren’t in the community.
- 2021 Inquest Findings: Revealed over 100,000 firearms on the state’s missing list (lost, stolen, destroyed without record), highlighting systemic issues and missed opportunities.
- Research from The Australia Institute shows over 9,000 firearms were stolen from 2020-2024 in Australia (around one every four hours), often legally owned guns being stolen and entering the illegal market.
- These figures often conflate police-lost guns with a vast number of privately-owned firearms that are reported missing, stolen, or destroyed without proper updates in police databases.
- Gaps in data, unregistered firearms, and lack of state-level data contribute to the large missing lists, making it hard to track legally owned guns that become illegal.
While specific numbers for lost police-owned guns are often linked to record-keeping issues (like in 2010), the broader “missing guns” problem in Victoria involves tens of thousands of firearms from all sources, with significant ongoing thefts of licensed guns contributing to the total.
The digital National Register of Guns will become useless before it starts because every state has similar problems to Victoria. Garbage in – garbage out!
Confiscated Victorian AR15 rifle found at Port Arthur
Here are little known facts about a Colt AR 15 SP1 carbine found at the Port Arthur massacre in 1996.
The rifle in question was handed in to be crushed in 1987 in Victoria by Yea farmer, the late Bill Drysdale, under John Cain’s semi-automatic gun ban and amnesty. The rifle was not destroyed, but was kept by the Victorian S.O.G, re-registered illegally under the Victorian LRD and eventually sold, along with 17 semi-automatic rifles to Garnet Featherstone of Granite Firearms in Bendigo.
These rifles were then on-sold to supposed licensed persons. Drysdale’s rifle was found in the gutter of the Sea Scape cottage at the Port Arthur massacre in 1996.
After the story broke in the Herald Sun, Assistant Police Commissioner Ian Sinclair called a press conference and admitted the S.O.G acquisition and sale. Granite Firearms and Tassie gun dealer, Terry Hill’s gun registers were seized by police and have never seen the light of day. (Hill was accused of selling a gun to Bryant, but was never proven to have done so)
It was Terry Hill’s statement to police about Bryant which destroyed the official narrative that Bryant was a proficient shooter. Hill said Bryant brought an AR10 into his shop before the massacre and when he took it off him there was a live round in the breech while the intellectually disabled Bryant complained he didn’t know how to fit the magazine.
Hill seized the gun and did not give it back to Bryant. Consequently Tasmania police hounded Hill out of business and out of Tasmania.
His official statement has never been released.
Drysdale’s rifle was re-circulated into the community by VicPol in the first instance, so why are law abiding shooters being demonized?
New data from state law enforcement agencies and other sources found that nationally over 44,600 firearms have been stolen over the past 20 years – one every four hours. Police recover only around a quarter of guns taken.
Of the 8,847 firearms stolen in Queensland from 2018 to 2025 and in WA from 2013 to 2024, only 2,220 or 25 per cent were recovered.
Western Australia firearm registry
Under instruction from a terrified WA government, WA Police saw a dedicated contingent of police deployed across the state, conducting search warrants focused on individuals with so-called sovereign citizen-aligned ideology and having access to firearms.
Numerous firearms were confiscated by police.
Radical Moslem Jihadists like the Bondi shooters had no similar associations and escaped scrutiny.
Information on the number of firearms lost specifically by the Western Australia Police Force is not publicly available. The available data primarily concerns the number of licensed civilian firearms stolen or lost in Western Australia each year.
Between 2019 and 2022, 1394 firearms were reported as stolen from private hands.
Breaches in government online portals specifically a significant security flaw were detected within a new online firearms portal in Western Australia, which exposed sensitive information, including the locations of gun safes and ammunition, to all other users.
A flaw in the system allowed some users (specifically, club officials) to access the personal details and the specific locations where other licensed gun owners stored their firearms and ammunition.
This exposed the sensitive safe storage locations of thousands of licensed gun owners to people who should not have had access, including former club officials.
Authorities temporarily suspended access to the online portal following numerous complaints and reports of the security issue. The Police Commissioner and state government rejected claims that it was a “security breach” but acknowledged issues.
This incident highlights general concerns about data security in firearms registries across Australia, many of which are paper-based, leading to potential loopholes, delays, and security vulnerabilities
It does not augur well for Albanese’s new National Gun Registry.
NSW Police lose guns
Theft of legal guns is one of the main sources of illegal firearms in Australia, yet public information on the topic is scarce.
A major theft of 31 Glock semi-auto handguns and three revolvers occurred at the Obliging Security Services company at Chester Hill, Sydney, in September 2003.
Officers say a guard was forced to open a safe where the semi-automatic hand guns and ammunition were being kept.
There have been significant concerns raised regarding data integrity and security within the firearms registry, as well as several separate incidents where NSW Police employees (both civilian and sworn officers) have been charged for general unauthorised access and distribution of restricted police data relating to firearms.
Multiple NSW Police employees have been charged in separate incidents in recent years for accessing the police database (which includes the firearms registry data) without authorisation. These cases generally involved accessing information about individuals for personal reasons.
A 2019 audit report by the NSW Audit Office highlighted critical gaps in the Registry’s data management, noting that information in the register was not always accurate or up-to-date and that the Registry did not have processes to efficiently identify address changes. The report recommended that the NSW Police Force “conduct computer access audits according to NSW Police Force policy” to improve integrity.
A report from 2013 mentioned a whistleblower police officer who claimed the firearms database lacked sufficient audit trails when it was moved to a local intranet, raising concerns about undetectable breaches at that time. NSW Police responded at the time there was “no evidence” the database was compromised.
In summary, while the security of the firearms registry has been a subject of concern, internal data breaches have occurred.
An audit covering the period between 1996 and 2007 found that 14 police Glocks had been stolen, with only five recovered. More recent information, released in response to a parliamentary question, provides data on firearms stolen from 2014 to 2023, rather than lost ones.
In New South Wales, an average of approximately 559 firearms are reported stolen annually from licensed owners based on data from 2004-2025. More recent data indicates a slight upward trend in thefts since 2020 after a decline during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Labor’s attempt at more gun confiscation is government hypocrisy at its worst.
