A licence loophole?
Firearms lawyer: Someone around him must have known.
A concerning loophole in New Zealand firearms law may have given the Christchurch mosque shooter the capacity he needed to slaughter dozens of people.
Experts say it appears from the video the gunman took at the scene that he was using a modified military-style semiautomatic rifle with 30-round magazines strapped together for ease of access.
Semi-automatic weapons are self-loading, allowing a bullet to be discharged every time the trigger is pulled.
It’s been revealed that the man charged in relation to the attacks, Brenton Tarrant, obtained a firearms licence in New Zealand in November 2017. He’s said to have had no criminal convictions.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she understands Tarrant had a category A licence and would have been able to obtain the guns he used legally.
But how could the gunman have got hold of the military-style weapons – aren’t they restricted?
It’s not that simple. In New Zealand, a military-style weapon is defined as one with certain features, such as a pistol grip, collapsible stock, flash suppressor and large capacity magazine.
An E category special licence and police approval is needed to buy one.
But a semi-automatic rifle with virtually identical functionality – minus the extras – can be bought on a standard firearms licence.
The mosque shooter could have bought a standard weapon and then bought the extra parts separately – although in doing so he would have been committing a crime under the Arms Act.
Ardern says police believe the guns had been modified.
The alleged shooter would only have been entitled to use seven-round magazines, or 15-round for .22 ammunition – but getting the 30-round magazines would not have been a problem because anyone can go into a gun shop and buy them without a licence.
‘‘Unfortunately we’ve got this situation of people with their standard firearms licence and then they’ve gone and bought 30-round magazines or even 100-round drum magazines – there’s no licence required to buy those magazines by themselves,’’ said firearms lawyer Nicholas Taylor.
‘‘But it is an offence under the Arms Act for that person to be in possession of a standard firearm with a large capacity magazine if they don’t have a special endorsement for it.’’
Ardern has vowed to change our firearms law – Taylor said she can start by requiring people to present their E category endorsement to buy the larger magazines.
Taylor said the focus of firearms law has been on the ‘‘fit and proper person’’ test rather than the firearm itself, but the Christchurch attacks show changes to vetting procedures are also needed.
‘‘He got his firearms licence in 2017. If I was the police I’d be going back to the way he got his firearms licence and the people he put forward for vetting and the way they were interviewed about him.
‘‘I’ve been dealing with criminal cases for 20 years and it’s quite clear that people around him should have known or seen – there’s always someone who knows about it.
‘‘An easy fix would be to double or triple the number of people that you have to put forward for vetting . . . and you’ve got to go and do psychometric tests and things like that.’’
Another improvement would be reducing licence periods from 10 years to five, Taylor said.
The Arms Act was amended in 1992 to restrict firearms such as the AK-47 used by David Gray at Aramoana two years earlier, but further recommendations by Justice Thorp in 1997 were never enacted.
An Arms Amendment Bill, introduced in 2005, languished until it was dismissed in 2012. Every year since 2010, government proposals for changes to legislation have been drawn up, and then quietly dropped.
Police Minister Stuart Nash requested a review of the legislation and has been presented with official advice – that process is likely to be fast-tracked after the Christchurch massacres.
But the gun lobby is unlikely to stay quiet while politicians dabble with laws.
‘‘It’s quite clear that people around him should have known or seen.’’ Firearms lawyer Nicholas Taylor, right
‘‘It seems like the victims’ blood hasn’t even dried before certain people are trying to push their agenda,’’ said sport shooter and ‘‘sensible’’ firearms law campaigner Mike Loder.
‘‘We want a calm, rational explanation of what happened. It may be that some monster came here and did a monstrous thing – that could be it.’’
Taylor said changing the law radically will be tricky because of the push-back from various groups.
‘‘It’s been often said . . . firearms law is like handling plasticine – if you hold it well and securely, it will be contained but if you squeeze it too hard it will slip out between your fingers.’’
‘‘[The law] is going to have to be looked at and unfortunately it’s taken an event like this to motivate people to do it.’’