Inner West Crime Watch: The Latest Changes to NSW Gun Laws | CM Law Blog

You'd have to have been living under a rock to not realise that gun crime is on the rise in Sydney's Inner West, as well as throughout NSW. There's now very little a lawyer or solicitor can do if you're found to be a involved in criminal activity regarding guns, thanks to new legislation that has made it easier for NSW police to search for guns.

The legislation came into effect in late September, and it won't be very long till the entire state is seeing it used in action. This new legislation means that the police will now be able to stop and search anyone who has been banned from owning guns, without the police requiring a warrant, even if there's no cause for a police officer to be suspicious. Police can now freely search people, cars, bikie clubhouses, and places known to be criminal dens.

This change in legislation will also make it easier for police to ban people from owning any sort of firearms. At present, there are only 70 people in NSW that this ban applies to, but, again, this could change very soon as a result of this new legislation. Along with new allowances for police procedures and searches, the legislation has meant that the penalty for being found with an illegal weapon or supplying illegal weapons has increased from 10 years jail time to 14 years.

Before the legislation came into effect, police couldn't target people that they knew or suspected as being involved with illegal weapons in some manner without reasonable grounds for suspicion. Of course, the police can't be everywhere, and cannot follow every single person of the 70 who are banned from owning firearms. The change in legislation means that if a member of the police force comes across one of these 70 people that they can immediately perform a search without having to wait hours or days for the appropriate search warrant to go through the correct channels.

These changes to legislation shouldn't affect everyday, law-abiding citizens negatively. In fact, they should help to reduce the increase in gun crime and gun culture in the state of NSW, and keep people safe.