Introduction: Air rifles are often overlooked in New Zealand as weapons of little lethal significance. Modern air rifles have had a significant increase in capability but remain essentially unrestricted in New Zealand. Both recent clinical cases and a porcine model study performed by the authors added evidence to the possibility of lethal injuries being inflicted at close and medium range. We investigated the burden of air rifle trauma with a comparative retrospective study of patients with gunshot wounds admitted to Auckland City Hospital to assess the current burden of these injuries in a metropolitan centre. Results: 114 Gunshot wound cases were admitted to Auckland Hospital of which 38 (32.7%) were Air Rifle injuries. Mean ISS scores were 8.6 for air rifles, 15.0 for (gun)powdered rifles and 8.7 for shotguns. Non superficial injuries were sustained in 58% of air rifle trauma and 84% and 60% for powdered weapons and shotguns respectively. Injuries were inflicted intentionally in 58% of air rifle injuries, and 86% and 90% of powdered rifle and shotgun injuries respectively. Conclusion: Air rifle trauma is responsible for a large portion of the gun trauma in the Auckland region with a new finding of increased severity of injuries and increasing intentional injuries compared to historic data. Increasing restrictions on these weapons to bring them into line with weapons of similar capability such as .22 rifles would have potential significant public health benefit and warrants consideration by lawmakers.