Firearms programme district lead Senior Sergeant Greg Ballantyne said the three main collection points, in Dunedin, Invercargill and Queenstown, were running yesterday.
By mid-afternoon, about 60 people had gone to the Invercargill collection, and both Dunedin and Queenstown had been flat out, he said.
"There’s definitely been a last-minute rush," he said.
"It’s like your Christmas shopping - everyone leaves it until the last minute."
For those who did not hand their guns in by last night, there would be no further opportunities for compensation, he said.
There would be no extension — anyone prosecuted might lose their firearms licence and could face a penalty of up to five years in prison.
However, the buyback has been called a failure.
National Party justice spokesman Mark Mitchell said the blame rested with the Government.
Police estimated they had received more than 50,000 firearms, but Mr Mitchell said that was fewer than a third of the number of banned firearms in the country.
"It’s clear why only a small number of firearms have been handed back and it’s on the Government that rushed the process, wasn’t clear on requirements, changed the prohibited list during the programme and failed to engage with the firearms community," Mr Mitchell said.
Act New Zealand leader David Seymour said yesterday he was ‘‘mournfully proud’’ to have been proved right over the failure of the buyback scheme.
"It’s difficult to imagine that not only the Government but all of Parliament could have screwed up worse than the knee-jerk legislation that they forced through in April," Mr Seymour said.
"The Act Party takes no comfort from being vindicated from the failure of the gun buyback."
His comments came as the Council of Licensed Firearms Owners
released the results of a survey - taken from 5000 of its members - showing the ban had led to a sharp decline in gun owners’ trust in the police.
Spokeswoman Nicole McKee said the "high-handed attitude of the police hierarchy has led to the almost complete failure by police at a frontline level to convince firearm owners to hand in their firearms".
She said many owners of the now-prohibited firearms would hide them to make sure the police could not get their hands on them.
— Additional reporting NZ Herald
