Police found a large number of firearms, including military-assault type weapons – including AK47s and M16s – in the ceiling of an Auckland house.

Any changes to New Zealand's gun laws should not come at the expense of the country's "inclusive" firearms culture, a gun owners group says.

Council of Licenced Firearm Owners president Paul Clark has urged against any overreaction, as calls continue for an independent inquiry into New Zealand's gun culture.

The push follows the high-profile Kawerau siege this week where four police were shot, as well as the discovery during a police raid on Thursday of fourteen military assault-grade AK47s and M16s.

Clark said armed crime statistics in New Zealand showed offending was "actually quite low by world standards", even compared with countries which had more stringent gun regulations.

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New Zealand's focus on vetting gun owners and educating them about proper behaviour had worked well to date, he said.

"We still have here an inclusive firearms culture – we try to get most people on the right side of the fence.

"Now that doesn't work entirely, 100 per cent, let's be quite honest, it doesn't, but it does seem to work overall better than most systems in the world."

A ban on all firearms would not solve the problem, as the continuing supply of illegal drugs showed.

"We make cocaine and heroin and methamphetamine illegal, but it still gets smuggled in by the bloody tonne, and guns would be no different."

UNIVERSAL REGISTRATION 'FALLS APART'

Universal gun registration did not work as well as the experts said, as it was expensive to maintain a register and not every firearm would be declared, Clark said.

"It sounds good, until you try to actually implement it, then it falls apart badly."

While any police shooting was tragic, they had occurred rarely in New Zealand's history, he said.

"It's regrettable that they happen, I'm not arguing that, but if you put it against almost 140 years of policing, if you're a statistician you'd say, yes well it's unfortunate, but does it indicate a serious problem, no."

Labour police spokesman Stuart Nash, who on Thursday called for an independent inquiry into the availability, use and control of guns, said the rising number of guns confiscated in police showed the need for action.

'WHAT'S DRIVING THIS BEHAVIOUR?'

Police had confiscated 1010 guns in 2011/12, but that rose to 1504 in 2014/15, Nash said.

"We need to know what is driving this behaviour ... the number one priority must be to ensure the safety of our hard-working frontline officers and our communities."

Green Party police spokesman David Clendon said he had first asked Parliament's law and order committee, on which he sits, for a guns briefing four months ago, but nothing had happened.

"Gun violence was a serious problem in New Zealand, well before the shootings this week.

"Had the government not stalled all that time, an inquiry could have been underway."

Acting committee chairman Todd Barclay said: "The process for the committee when it receives a proposal to undertake an inquiry would be to consider it at a future meeting."

Barclay did not respond to further questions about whether the committee had already received a request, or was already looking into an inquiry.

A police spokesman said the force was "open to discussion about ways in which the current firearms regime might be strengthened, so that criminal access to firearms can be further reduced".

Police also regularly reviewed the firearms control regime, the spokesman said.