Christchurch attack was foreseeable amid ‘weak’ gun laws, investigators say

The firearms licensing system has improved significantly since the attack, the Christchurch inquest has heard.
Photo: AFP

The Christchurch terror attack was predictable and successive governments failed to close a loophole that allowed the militant to gain access to military-grade firearms, an inquest into the 51 worshipers killed at the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Center has heard.

Investigators are looking into gun laws at the time of the March 2019 shooting.

University of Waikato terrorism and firearms expert Professor Alexander Gillespie told the inquiry that “the system of both firearms licensing and the regulation of high-risk firearms platforms prior to 15 March 2019 was critically flawed.”

“What happened was predictable in terms of lax controls on both the legal and illegal firearms markets,” he said.

“After the terrorist attack, the system was significantly improved. However, the new system did not adopt innovations to further reduce the threat, which New Zealand could learn from practices already in place in some comparable countries.

“Finally, there needs to be clear guidance for licensing authorities on how to identify and deal with people who may hold extreme views but do not cross the threshold of a criminal conviction.”

In 2016, Gillespie told a parliamentary select committee that another tragedy on the scale of Aramoana could be foreseen due to a lack of control over so-called military-style semi-automatic firearms.

In 1990, David Gray killed 13 people in the small Dunedin community of Aramoana.

In 1992, Parliament moved to restrict access to what they defined as the “military-style semi-automatic firearms” that Gray used during the massacre.

However, changes to firearm restrictions were largely cosmetic, and holders of standard Category A firearms licenses could still legally purchase semi-automatic centerfire rifles.

The procurement of magazines, including high-capacity magazines, remained completely unregulated.

With the advent of modular rifles, such as AR-15-style rifles, someone could legally purchase a semi-automatic centerfire rifle using a standard license and outfit it with high-capacity magazines—essentially creating their own “military-style semi-automatic rifle.” -auto”.

Brenton Tarrant used two of these firearms during the March 2019 shootings.

In 2017, two people were killed by an unlicensed person who illegally purchased such a weapon from Michael Hayes, a licensed firearms owner.

Gillespie told the inquest that during Hayes’ sentencing, Judge John McDonald said: “The way you modified these three firearms could only have had one purpose other than target shooting, and that was to kill people. These were not hunting rifles, they were not sporting rifles. These were rifles that were used by militaries around the world to kill other people.”

Gillespie said that if Tarrant had not been granted a firearms license, he could still have obtained the weapon illegally, as in the case cited.

However, a military-style semi-automatic backdoor contributed to the deadly scale of the attack.

“The MSSA loophole or gap was one part of the equation that enabled Mr. Tarrant to legally acquire, with minimal interference or oversight, the firepower he needed to commit his crimes. The gap was so great that 51 people were killed.” Gillespie said.

“In my opinion, if this gap (had) been closed in advance, although the attack could still have occurred, it would not have resulted in such a huge carnage.”

In August 2017, then Police Minister Paula Bennett received a police briefing outlining a loophole in the law that allowed people to access supposedly more restricted military-style semi-automatic firearms.

That same month, a terrorist arrived in New Zealand.

Within weeks, he began the process of obtaining a firearms license.

About 18 months later, he carried out one of the deadliest mass shootings in history.

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