The government has agreed to a set of reforms ‘in principle’
New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Arden has vowed to reform the country’s gun laws in the aftermath of an attack that killed 50 people in Christchurch.
The massacre was carried out on Friday across two mosques in the city by a far-right terrorist who filmed the shooting and posted an online anti-Islamic manifesto online before the attack.
Brenton Tarrant was arrested and yet was not on a police watch list at the time, purchasing guns legally and modifying them to a military standard – which is also not illegal under New Zealand law.
That is expected to change soon after Arden announced that her cabinet had agreed “in principle” to reform gun laws and action will be taken soon.
“We have made a decision as a cabinet, we are unified,” she said on Monday.
“This ultimately means that within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism, we will have announced reforms which will, I believe, make our community safer.”
Australian national Tarrant, 28, owned five guns and held a licence to do so in New Zealand, which he obtained in November 2017. It has led to criticism of the shop which sold the weapons.
“We detected nothing extraordinary about this licence holder,” admitted David Tipple, the owner of Christchurch outlet Gun City, which claims to be the largest gun store in the world.
Currently, the legal age to own a gun in the Southern Hemisphere nation is 16, rising to 18 for semi-automatic weapons. Background checks and a licence are mandatory but, once secured, there is no limit on the number of guns a person can own.
The reforms come amid the continued prevention of reforms in the United States’, where over 50 mass shootings have already occurred in 2019 alone. President Donald Trump has so far focused his efforts on banning bump stock for semi-automatic weapons.
