New airgun import laws?

I must admit I don't know the rules very well. What gun in particular are you interested in? There are a couple on the market that have the "AR" style grip.

in our recent experience with our local cops who know us both very well personallyand have done for years,nz polices attitude towards airguns has changed a great deal recently,not only are they calling all airguns firearms but treating them as firearms as well,bear in mind these local country cops all have know us personally for many years,and have never had any issuses with either of us over firearms or airguns,the police position regarding importing airguns privately seems be if you can buy one here from a dealer you dont need to import one and wont issuse an import permit,this seems to apply with all airguns from softair thru to pcps,they dont like pcps and consider them to be just as dangerous as firearms these days,we have known all our local country cops personally for many years and until recently we allways got on very well with each other,but we have noticed their attitude towards us has changed significantly,they now allways go about in pairs and armed when visiting any property that has a firearms licence holder in residence around here,its allmost like they have become afraid of anyone holding a firearms licence now,why it should be this way is anyones guess,but seems be how its become now,this is the country out here there are airguns and firearms every where,but never used be a problem,but suddenly its become a problem for our local cops,most of whom we have all known personally for years and allways got on well with,there has definatly been a very significant change in attitude from our local cops and how they now interacte with us thats a little concerning to most of us locals thats certainly not winning hearts and minds or contributing to maintaining our once good relationship between us,our police are distancing themselves from the community and what had allways been a friendly cooperative relationship of mutual benifit is fast becoming one of them and us because to us it now appears as if the police no longer trust any of us and as they will soon find out thats not going to work out well for them as we are now begining to no longer trust the police,

Yeah the issue I'm having is that before the laws changed after the Christchurch shootings, it was clear that if an airgun had the appearance of being a pistol or had any features that would make a firearm a MSSA (such as a pistol grip or magazine appearing to hold more than 10 rounds) it would be illegal to import without a permit. Since MSSA's are no longer a thing, you can now buy an AR style rimfire rifle on an Acat license (which you could not before). What I'm wondering is if this applies to airguns also. I've found no material from either police or customs and judging by the way the laws were hastily changed without much though I wouldn't be surprised if they really don't know?

Yeah I probably won't go through all the trouble as I was just considering a co2 rifle or pistol for plinking and a bit of fun. There doesn't seem to be anywhere in Canterbury anymore that sells them? I've got a more powerful break barrel rifle that does the job for birds and mice when it's nessicary. Thanks for the insight though 👍

i never would have believed our gun laws would end up being worse than the UK but i was proved so wrong on that one,i am now jealous of how good the poms have got it today and considering how bad it is in the UK ,we have it worse and its only going to get evan worse here,they are making things up as they go along here now,getting an import permit for any airgun depends very much on the attitude of who you are dealing with,not allways what the laws states,getting an import permit now is like buying a lottery ticket,the whole system is a total shambles,but thats bout par for the course with this disfunctional government and nz police these days,neither have a clue what they are doing on this and most other things as well.