New Zealand, a country of only five million people, has an estimated 1.5 million firearms.
The minimum age for a gun license is 16, and 18 to own a semi-automatic weapon.
Tightening New Zealand’s gun laws was at the top of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s agenda as she met with her cabinet on Monday for the first time since the last Friday’s mosque massacre.
“What the public rightly are asking right now is why is it and how is it that you are currently able to buy military style semi-automatic weapons in New Zealand, and that’s the right question to ask,” Ardern told TVNZ.
“There are ways we can bring in affective regulation of firearms that actually target those we need to target and that is our focus.”
Ardern later told a press conference that the cabinet was unanimous in plans to change gun laws but said details would be announced at a later date.
A Christchurch gun shop on Monday acknowledged selling guns online to the 28-year-old attacker.
At a news conference, Gun City owner David Tipple said the store sold four guns and ammunition to Tarrant through a “police-verified online mail order process”.
The store “detected nothing extraordinary” about the purchaser, he said. None of the guns sold to Tarrant was military-style semi-automatic weapons.
‘Emotional responses’
Tipple said he felt no responsibility for the tragedy and refused to say whether he believed gun ownership laws should change in New Zealand.
Ardern has said the attacker used five guns, two of them semi-automatic, which were purchased with an ordinary gun license and modified.