New Zealand police have confirmed that more than 56,000 guns were handed in as part of the buyback and have praised gun owners for their response to the scheme, which ended at midnight.

“As of midnight, 20 December 2019, 56,240 firearms and 194, 245 parts have been handed in,” said deputy police commissioner, Mike Clement.

He also confirmed that 2,717 guns had been modified to make them lawful.

Police say there was a huge surge in people handing guns in at the last minute, with more than 4,000 surrendered in the last week.

“We kept our collection events open late last night to ensure those firearms owners who left it to the last minute did have the opportunity to do the right thing,” Clement said.

“Police welcome any opportunity to reduce harm in our communities and ultimately, the more than 30,000 hand-ins indicate that firearms owners understood the why – that we hope to never again see the kind of attack we saw in Christchurch.”

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern banned semi-automatic weapons and launched a gun amnesty and buyback scheme earlier this year, after a March shooting in Christchurch where a man is accused of gunning down 51 Muslims in two mosques.

Police say there were 685 collection events across the country and that police went to more than 270 people’s homes where they had a number of firearms or were unable to travel. More than forty dealers collected more than 6,000 firearms on behalf of police.

“Police really have made every effort to provide frequent and accessible options to firearms owners so there really were no excuses for not taking part,” Clement said.

This included 37 gunsmiths who helped firearms owner modify their guns to comply with the law.

But Clement had a warning for those who had defied the buyback scheme: “For anyone that has refused to abide by the law, my advice to you is to go to a station and hand in your firearm under amnesty now.”

He said those who missed the deadline would not be eligible for compensation, but if they don’t surrender their firearms they would potentially be liable for prosecution and loss of licence.

Almost NZ$100m ($66.1m) was paid in compensation to gun owners.