New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said on Monday that she would be announcing fresh gun laws into the country within few days after a lone gunman attacked two mosques in Christchurch city.
According to Reuters news reports, Brenton Tarrant, nation gunman, was charged with murder on Saturday. Without a plea, he was remanded and is due to be presented before the court on April 5, where he is expected to face various other charges.
At a news conference, after reaching a principle decision over gun reform law, Ardern said, “Within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism we will have announced reforms which will, I believe, make our community safer.”
David Tipple, the Gun city owner, said the gunman online bought four weapons from the store between 2017’s December and 2018’s March, but have not sold the gunman the high-powered weapons which were used on Friday by the gunman.
Tripple told a news conference in Christchurch: “The MSSA, military-style automatic, reportedly used by the alleged gunman was not purchased from Gun City. Gun City did not sell him an MSSA, only A-category firearms.”
Under the new gun laws, the A-grade weapons can be semi-automatic but being limited to only seven shots.
Tipple said the online purchases followed a police-verified online mail-order process and the store detected nothing extraordinary about the license holder.
He said he supported prime minister’s move to reform the gun laws. However, Ardern did not detail the new gun laws but said she supports a ban over automatic weapons.