Mapped: The private gun stockpiles of inner-Sydney

Somewhere in Sydney’s south-east, nestled between Malabar Beach, Port Botany and Little Bay, one person has been amassing a private arsenal with enough guns to supply some small countries’ entire armies.

Why does someone in inner-Sydney need 294 guns? The answer is unclear. But this isn’t the only person with such a massive collection. 

In Cremorne, a wealthy suburb on Sydney’s Lower North Shore, someone holds the record for the most guns owned by any individual in the entirety of NSW, with a staggering 371 firearms.

Cremorne is not a large suburb. That’s enough guns to arm a full theatre of movie-goers at the local cinema – all owned by one person. 

At the upper end of the Northern Beaches, there are at least three collections of around 200 guns in somewhere around Narrabeen, Cottage Point, and Belrose. 

Thankfully, the NSW Government has put new rules in place in an attempt to put a stop to these growing private stockpiles. The state’s new firearm reforms, passed in December 2025, limit individual firearm ownership to either four or ten guns (depending on a person’s reason for owning a firearm). 

Unfortunately, these reforms are not bulletproof. Applications for Collectors’ licences, which are not counted as individual licences and therefore allow unlimited gun ownership, skyrocketed after the reforms were passed with a 7000% (not  a typo) rise from the month before. 

This article only discusses Sydney because NSW is the only state to publish comprehensive information on firearm ownership. 

In some jurisdictions, this is due to lacklustre reporting requirements. While police might have access to this information, a private citizen in Brisbane or Melbourne could have no clue they’ve been living next to a house with 300 firearms in the basement.  

In others, this information has been impossible to produce. The ACT only recently began reforms of its previously paper-based firearm registry, with the Northern Territory in a similar boat. So, just like the public, police in those jurisdictions are left in the dark. 

It would be a positive step in terms of transparency for more jurisdictions to publish the kind of information NSW does. But until that happens, NSW’s figures paint a worrying picture of mounting private arsenals in inner-city suburbs.