NZ PRIME MINISTER JACINDA ARDERN VOWS TOUGH NEW GUN LAWS AFTER NEW ZEALAND TERRORIST ATTACK & ERDOGAN CRITICISED FOR SHOWING NZ VIDEO

PM Ardern said on Monday she would announce new gun laws within days, after alone terrorist killed 50 people in mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been criticised for showing some of the New Zealand mosque white terrorist gunman's video to bolster support at election rallies.

Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white terrorist, was charged with murder on Saturday. Tarrant was remanded without a plea and is due back in court on April 5 where police said he was likely to face more charges.

“Within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism we will have announced reforms which will, I believe, make our community safer,” Ardern told a news conference after her cabinet reached in principle decisions on gun reform laws in the wake of New Zealand’s worst ever mass shooting.

In addition to the 50 killed, dozens were wounded at two mosques in the South Island city during Friday prayers.

The owner of gun shop Gun City, David Tipple, said the terrorist had legally bought four weapons and ammunition online from it between December 2017 and March 2018, but it did not sell him the high-powered weapon used in the massacre.

“The MSSA, military-style automatic, reportedly used by the alleged gunman was not purchased from Gun City. Gun City did not sell him an MSSA, only A-category firearms,” Tipple told a news conference in Christchurch.

Under New Zealand gun laws, A-category weapons can be semi-automatic but limited to seven shots. Live-streamed video of a terrorist in one of the mosques showed a semi-automatic weapon with a large magazine.

Tipple said he supported Ardern’s decision to reform gun laws as the Christchurch shootings had raised legitimate concerns.

Ardern did not give details on new laws, but has said she supports a ban on semi-automatic weapons following the Christchurch shootings.

Australia introduced some of the world’s toughest gun laws after its worst mass killing, the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in which a lone gunman killed 35 people using a semi-automatic AR-15 - the same weapon used in the Christchurch massacre.

Australia banned semi-automatic weapons, launched a gun amnesty in which tens of thousands of weapons were handed in, and made it much tougher to own them.

Mr Erdogan said part of attacker terrorist Tarrant's manifesto was to keep Turks from Europe.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters told Turkish officials showing the video was "unfair" and endangered his country's citizens abroad.

The terrorist attacker live-streamed video of the killings and it was widely shared and downloaded as social media firms raced to take the footage down.

In New Zealand the footage has been classified as an objectionable publication and it is an offence to distribute or possess it.

Sunday's rallies were aimed at galvanising support among his conservative power base ahead of a local election at the end of this month.

The prime motive was to condemn global Islamophobia - along with the West's response to it - and to criticise political opponents inside Turkey as weak.

Mr Erdogan pointed to specific mentions of Turkey by the suspect in his manifesto.

The president said the suspect had visited Turkey twice and wanted Turkish Muslims removed from Turkey's European territory on the western side of the Bosphorus.

Mr Erdogan told a rally in Gaziantep: "What does it say? That we shouldn't go west of the Bosporus, meaning Europe. Otherwise, he would come to Istanbul, kill us all, drive us out of our land."

Semi-blurred footage of part of the mosque attack was shown on screens at at least three rallies, along with extracts said to be from the online manifesto.

Mr Erdogan also criticised the leader of Turkey's main opposition CHP party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, showing a clip of him talking about "terrorism rooted in the Islamic world".