New Zealand's government is proposing legislation to ban certain criminals from being anywhere near guns even if they didn't own them, a measure that politicians acknowledge has significant human rights implications.

The proposed law would make it illegal for some criminals to live or visit a house where a gun is present or to travel in a car that has a gun inside.

The proposal is the latest gun-control measure introduced by the government since Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in March vowed to overhaul gun laws in the days after a gunman killed 51 people at two Christchurch mosques.

Read: New Zealand tightens gun laws again after mosque attack

Since then, the government has banned assault weapons such as AR-15-style rifles and has introduced a bill that would create a gun registry to track all guns in the country.