New Zealand moves quickly on gun reform laws after mosque shootings
CHRISTCHURCH : New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday she would announce new gun laws within days, after a lone gunman killed 50 people in mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch.
Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday. Tarrant was remanded without a plea and is due back in court on April 5 where police said he was likely to face more charges. “Within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism we will have announced reforms which will, I believe, make our community safer,” Ardern told a news conference after her cabinet reached in principle decisions on gun reform laws in the wake of New Zealand’s worst ever mass shooting.
The owner of gun shop Gun City, David Tipple, said the suspected gunman had legally bought four weapons and ammunition online from it between December 2017 and March 2018, but it did not sell him the high powered weapon used in the massacre .“themssa, 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,” Tipple told a news conference.
Tipple said he supported Ardern’s decision to reform gun laws as the Christchurch shoot- ings had raised legitimate concerns. Ardern did not give details on new laws, but has said she supports a ban on semi-automatic weapons following the Christchurch shootings.
TURKEY’S ERDOGAN SHOWS ATTACK VIDEO
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan showed parts of a video taken by the mosque attacker to comment on what he called rising Islamophobia.
He showed the clips over the weekend during campaign rallies for March 31 local elections. The video, which was blurred but had clear sounds of automatic gunfire, was shown to thousands of people at the rallies and was aired live on Turkish television.