INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Image copyrightEPA A mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, has re-opened the national debate about firearms laws
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark told the TheIndianSubcontinent that she would be surprised if parliament did not now legislate
for stricter gun control.She said: "Questions are now being asked….how could they have amassed the guns"In 2016 New Zealand Police
estimated that there were 1.2 million legal firearms owned by civilians - that equates to around one for every four people.So how are they
regulatedGun laws The minimum legal age to own a gun in New Zealand is 16, or 18 for military-style semi-automatic weapons
Anyone over those ages who is considered by police to be "fit and proper" can possess a firearm.All gun-owners must have a licence, but most
individual weapons don't have to be registered
New Zealand is one of the few countries where this is the case.In order to own a gun legally, applicants for a firearm licence must pass a
background check of criminal and medical records
Factors like mental health, addiction and domestic violence should be considered.Once a licence has been issued, gun-owners can buy as many
While most guns don't have to be registered, a special application does have to be made to police to own military-style semi-automatic
weapons, pistols, or other restricted firearms.Because of this, police say they can't be sure how many legally owned firearms there are in
the country as there is "no record of the majority of firearms"
As of June 2018, there were 246,952 active firearms licences including dealers and individual owners
The year before, of the 43,509 who people applied for firearms licences, 43,321 were granted them.Until the mosque attacks, New Zealand's
worst mass shooting was in 1990 in the small seaside town of Aramoana on the South Island, in which 13 people were killed
That shooting prompted an amendment to the the Arms Act (1983), the main law governing gun use and ownership, restricting the ownership of
military-style semi-automatic weapons
But parliament stopped short of a total ban
The law was further amended in 2012 to clarify which weapons are restricted
Guns and crime In a response to an official request for information last year, New Zealand Police published figures showing that 859
restricted-category firearms were seized by police between 2008 and 2017
During the same period, 12,688 firearms of all types were seized.Police figures show that in the decade to 2017-18, there were 28 homicides
involving a firearm where the offender had a current firearms licence, and 126 homicides where the offender had never held a firearms
Read more from Reality CheckSend us your questionsFollow us on Twitter
