March 12, 2024
Luxon defends gun law change
On the eve of the 5 year anniversary of the Christchurch mosque shootings, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon won’t rule out changing semi-automatic gun laws.
Military-style weapons were banned in legislation rushed through in the days after a lone gunman killed 51 people at the Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Islamic Centre.
ACT MP Nicole McKee, the Associate Justice Minister for Firearms is rewriting the Arms Act and says she want to give competition shooters access to military-style guns for sport.
Mr Luxon says nothing has come to cabinet yet, but he insists the Government is cracking down on illegal firearms.
“I know Nicole McKee, our minister, is working incredibly hard to make sure she strengthens public safety and also compliance but what I would say is you would have seen us move very clearly last week with regard to illegal guns so there will be change in that space because under the (firearms prohibition orders) we want to see for illegal guns used by criminals and gang members, we are going to crack down on that pretty hard,” he says.
The Prime Minister will spend Friday with whānau who lost love ones in the terror attack.