{"id":36537,"date":"2019-03-21T05:22:45","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T05:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=36537"},"modified":"2019-03-21T05:22:45","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T05:22:45","slug":"new-zealand-bans-sale-of-assault-semi-automatic-rifles-pm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=36537","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand bans sale of assault, semi-automatic rifles: PM"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Christchurch, New Zealand <\/strong>–\u00a0<\/strong>New Zealand <\/a>has banned the sale of assault rifles and semi-automatic<\/a> weapons after the country’s worst-ever attack that killed 50 people<\/a> in two mosques.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Be assured this is just the beginning of the work we’ll be doing,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a news conference on Thursday.<\/p>\n

“It’s in the national interest and it’s about safety … to prevent an act of terror from ever happening again in our country,” she said of the ban.<\/p>\n

Ardern said she expects the new law to be in place by April 11 and buy-back schemes will be established for banned weapons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Now, six days after this attack, we are announcing a ban on all military-style semi-automatics (MSSA) and assault rifles in New Zealand,” Ardern said.<\/p>\n

She said the man arrested in the attacks on two Christchurch mosques had purchased his weapons legally and enhanced their capacity by using 30-round magazines “done easily through a simple online purchase”.<\/p>\n

“Related parts used to convert these guns into MSSAs are also being banned, along with all high-capacity magazines,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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New Zealand to mark one week since Christchurch mosque attacks<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

“In short, every semi-automatic weapon used in the terrorist attack on Friday will be banned in this country.”<\/p>\n

Ardern said the interim measures announced on Thursday will stop a rush of purchases before legislation on the measures takes effect next month.<\/span><\/p>\n

She added there would be some limited exemptions for New Zealand’s farmers, many of\u00a0<\/span>whom require firearms for pest control and management of their livestock.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

White supremacist suspect<\/h2>\n

Ardern’s move came six days after a gunman entered the Al Noor and Linwood mosques and killed 50 people in an indiscriminate shooting spree.<\/p>\n

Police confirmed on Thursday all 50 victims of the attack had been identified by coroners, while funerals continued to take place as relatives collect their loved ones’ bodies from authorities.<\/p>\n

“I can say that as of a few minutes ago the identification process and to all 50 victims has been completed and all of the next of kin have been advised,” Police Commissioner Mike Bush said at a press conference in Wellington.<\/p>\n

“That is a landmark for this process,” he added.<\/p>\n

Australian\u00a0Brenton Tarrant<\/span><\/strong><\/a>, 28, a white supremacist <\/a>who was living in Dunedin, on New Zealand’s South Island, has been charged with murder following the attack on Friday.<\/span><\/p>\n

He was remanded without a plea and is due back in court on April 5, when police said he was likely to face more charges.<\/span><\/p>\n

The scale of the attack has caused global revulsion, including for Tarrant’s use of social media to livestream the carnage <\/a>in real-time.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a rambling “manifesto”, he said he was motivated partly by a desire to stoke religious conflict between Islam and the West by targetting “invaders”.<\/span><\/p>\n

Analysts welcomed the prime minister’s move in response to the massacre, saying despite the nation’s outpouring of grief over the incident, “thoughts and prayers don’t make much difference”.<\/p>\n

“What we are seeing at the moment is not political populism, or politicians taking advantage of a terrible situation, it’s actually highlighting political inertia from the past,” Jarrod Gilbert, a senior lecturer on crime and justice at the New Zealand-based University of Canterbury, told Al Jazeera.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ardern had previously cited Australia’s decision to change its gun laws<\/a> within 12 days after the country’s 1996 Port Arthur massacre, in which 35 people were killed, as a blueprint for amending New Zealand’s laws, saying “we will do it in less”.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

‘Well-considered and overdue’<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Previous governments failed to implement recommendations<\/a>made by Justice Thomas Thorp in his government-backed 1997 review of firearms control in New Zealand.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Australia, Turkey in row after Christchurch massacres<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Thorp’s review culminated in a call for all firearms to be individually registered to their owners, tighter vetting procedures for those seeking to buy weapons and a ban on military style semi-automatics.<\/span><\/p>\n

“This isn’t knee jerk by any stretch, these measures have been well considered and overdue,” Gilbert said.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Nobody is saying that New Zealanders can’t have a firearm … New Zealand is a country that requires firearms, but no one needs a military-style semi-automatic weapon,” he added, citing the example of farmers.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We allow people to drive cars in New Zealand we don’t allow people to drive tanks, that’s the equivalence \u2026 The time for these measures isn’t now, it’s actually long passed.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Following Ardern’s announcement, <\/span>Police Commissioner Bush\u00a0said<\/a> there would be an “amnesty” to allow people to hand in now illegal firearms to police.<\/p>\n

“For many people, you will now be in unlawful possession of your firearm,” Bush said in a statement.<\/p>\n

New Zealand’s foremost hunting body, Fish and Game NZ, said<\/a> on Wednesday it would support a ban and buy-back of military-style semi-automatic weapons and restrictions on high-capacity magazines.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christchurch, New Zealand –\u00a0New Zealand has banned the sale of assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons after the country’s worst-ever attack that killed 50 people in two mosques.\u00a0 “Be assured this is just the beginning of the work we’ll be doing,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a news conference on Thursday. “It’s in the national interest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36537\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}