Acting-Inspector Luke Cole from Griffith Local Area Command said the 6496 registered firearms were believed to be predominantly used on farms around the area.

“We’re not too concerned with the numbers,” Inspector Cole said. “Not compared to other rural areas like Dubbo and Bathurst, especially given that we’re in a rural area where a large amount of our population have a legitimate reason for possessing firearms.”

The highest number of firearms across NSW were in regional postcodes and rural areas with 14,757 in Dubbo, 14,542 in Tamworth and 14,253 in Bathurst. 

In comparrison, Wagga Wagga had 10,824 registered firearms.

NSW Police firearms commander Mick Plotecki said anecdotally, the combination of US popular gun culture and a recruitment drive by gun clubs may be behind the rise.

Inspector Cole said he wanted to reinforce to gun owners to comply with their safe storage requirements, given the increasing number of firearm thefts from rural properties. “Those thefts occur from time to time. That’s why we conduct the safe storage audits to ensure gun owners are compliant,” he said.

As a general rule, owners were required to have certain types of lockers anchored in a specific way and keep their ammunition stored separately to the weapon.

NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge said gains in community safety won since the Howard government's gun buyback program in 1996 had been lost.

“Many people will be quite rightly shocked to find there are many hundreds if not thousands of guns in their suburb,” Mr Shoebridge said.

“There are hundreds of thousands more guns now than following the gun buyback.”

Police Minister Troy Grant said there had been an increase in applications for legal firearms ownership but they were for a range of purposes including target shooting, recreational hunting, vermin control and primary production.

“The real concern is illegal firearms which are a clear and present danger to our community and police continue to target this illegal activity,” he said. 

It is estimated there are close to 3 million registered guns across Australia. 

There are now 850,636 firearms registered to private owners across the state compared to 758,802 in 2011.

Mr Shoebridge said the Greens would also move to ban a rapid-fire shotgun being imported to Australia this month.

He said 7000 pre-ordered Adler A110 Lever Action shotguns were due to arrive at a time when private gun ownership was nearing record levels. 

“This is a rapid-fire firearm which fires and reloads quickly, allowing eight shots in eight seconds. Despite this, the NSW Government intends to classify it as the least restricted kind of weapon,” Mr Shoebridge said.

He said the ACT had banned the gun outright because it was as dangerous as a pump-action shotgun.

“The Greens will be moving to ban this dangerous weapon as soon as the NSW Parliament returns,” Mr Shoebridge said.