Cop-killer Nathaniel Train had guns registered in two states when he ambushed police and a neighbour at Wieambilla

Wieambilla police killer Nathaniel Train owned guns that were registered in both NSW and Queensland at the same time, police have confirmed.

The makeshift sniper’s hide from where Gareth, Nathaniel and Stacey Train fatally shot police officers Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Wieambilla police killer Nathaniel Train owned guns that were registered in both NSW and Queensland at the same time, police have confirmed, finally revealing the key concern behind the urgent push to deliver Australia’s national firearms register.

The detail – which has been a closely guarded secret since Train, his brother Gareth and sister-in-law and ex-wife Stacey shot dead two police officers and a neighbour on December 12 – was disclosed by one of NSW Police’s most senior officers at a parliamentary hearing.

NSW Deputy Commissioner David Hudson told budget estimates that the “catalyst” for the renewed push for a national weapons database was the Wieambilla murders, in which Nathaniel Train had guns “registered in NSW and also co-registered in Queensland”.

“Certainly, the (police) union up in Queensland pushed the national firearms register from the day that the Wieambilla shooting happened,” he said in response to questions from Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party MP Robert Borsak.

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“Whether it would’ve made a difference in relation to that particular incident is probably still a point of discussion. However, a national firearms register for this country has been discussed for the last 20 years and it would be a very good outcome for the people of Australia, if it occurred, to allow one point of truth in relation to all things firearms and accessible to all states and jurisdictions.”

Matthew Arnold.

Rachel McCrow.

The Australian’s “Target on Guns” special investigation has uncovered a funding fight between states, territories and the federal government that has stalled progress towards a national firearms register, despite all governments first agreeing to the reform 27 years ago after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.

NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley said the state had offered its nation-leading Gun Safe real-time digital gun registry technology to help speed up the process, but had been ignored.

“NSW is way in advance of the rest of the states when it comes to the registering of firearms,” Ms Catley told Mr Borsak.

“NSW has offered for them to use our technology. The federal government hasn’t grasped that, as we probably think they should, but we will continue to work with the states and with the federal government in relation to that.”

Federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus this week told a meeting of the Police Ministers Council that the funding spat – driven by smaller jurisdictions insisting they cannot afford to upgrade their weapons databases to join a national registry – would be settled by national cabinet before the end of the year.

Most states and territories have antiquated, paper-based gun registries that cannot communicate instantly with other jurisdictions. It means a police officer in one state cannot instantly check if a person from another state is a legal gun-owner, and what weapons they are registered to possess.

NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley. Picture: Richard Dobson

Mr Hudson said NSW gun dealers had previously been exploiting the state’s old paper system by legally importing guns from overseas, registering them to their business and then “allegedly transferring them interstate on a paper-based system but then selling them to organised crime”.

“We identified a firearms dealer down the South Coast who had done exactly that on 300 occasions with pistols to outlaw motorcycle gangs and organised crime networks,” he said.

Queensland coroner Terry Ryan is investigating if communication gaps between the NSW and QLD police forces and firearm registries contributed to the tragedy at Wieambilla, in which constables Matthew Arnold, 26 and Rachel McCrow, 29, were shot dead when they entered the remote bush block, more than 300km west of Brisbane, looking for former NSW school principal Nathaniel Train. Neighbour Alan Dare was also killed.

The officers were following up on a NSW missing person’s report for Nathaniel Train at the request of their southern counterparts.

Train had illegally crossed the border from NSW the previous December, crashing through an e-gate and breaking Covid restrictions as he was unvaccinated.

When his vehicle got bogged, he dumped two of his five registered guns at the border, where they were later found by police.

After specialist police shot dead the three Trains after the ambush on December 12, they found a stockpile of ammunition and weapons at the Wieambilla property, including six guns: two were registered to Nathaniel Train, and four more appeared to be unregistered “grey market” guns, including one from 1904.

Nathaniel Train’s fifth registered weapon is still missing.

The Trains were conspiracy theorists, rampant anti-vaxxers, and were ultimately found to have committed Australia’s first act of terrorism motivated by extremist Christian beliefs when they fatally shot the police officers with high-powered rifles while hidden in a makeshift sniper’s hide.