NEW ZEALAND’S government will overhaul the tighter gun laws introduced after a deadly mass shooting by a white supremacist five years ago.

According to the Conservative politician leading the change, the current laws put excessive burdens on gun owners, who feel vilified by law enforcement and the public.

“What’s happened is a massive change with massive penalties and targets on people who didn’t do anything wrong,” Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee, a lobbyist for gun owners before she entered parliament in 2020, told reporters.

Every part of the law will be scrutinised, including the restrictions that bar all but a few hundred New Zealanders from firing banned semi-automatic weapons, she said.

Ms McKee’s pledge of a wide-ranging review, following an earlier announcement that she would ease rules for gun clubs, was applauded by groups representing the country’s 250,000 licence-holders and decried by survivors of the 2019 terrorist attack at two Christchurch mosques where an Australian man opened fire on Muslim worshippers, killing 51 people.

“It makes me scared for our futures,” Temel Atacocugu, who was shot nine times in the attack and fears an erosion of the assault weapon ban, said.

“What have the past five years been for? How are they going to prevent this from happening again?”

New Zealand drew global admiration when its then-prime minister Jacinda Ardern said six days after the massacre that her government would outlaw all semi-automatic weapons.

The change was approved by 119 MPs with only one opposed, and sweeping reforms followed: bolstered licensing requirements, more rules for gun clubs, and the creation of a firearms registry.

The changes introduced “onerous regulatory compliance,” claimed Ms McKee, whose political party, Act, campaigned for New Zealand’s 2023 election on a platform for reversing many of them.

Now in government as part of a right-wing coalition, Ms McKee pledged to update the law before the next election in 2026.

Her bloc has enough MPs to easily pass any reforms in the face of any resistance from the parliamentary opposition.

“The changes we made off the back of March 15 took military-style semi-automatic weapons off the street and made our communities safer,” said Labour’s Ginny Andersen.

“Making those guns more accessible will take New Zealand backwards.”

Ms McKee’s consultation was a “box-ticking exercise, with a select group and a very short time for responses,” Ms Andersen said in her emailed statement.

Ms McKee said she would consult with the public before deciding specific measures and that her personal views would not direct the overhaul. Critics rejected that.

“She was elected as a gun lobbyist, that was her role,” said Chris Cahill, president of the Police Association, a group representing most New Zealand officers.

“She’s got a loyalty to the gun lobby groups.”

The review was, “without a doubt, a backdoor into giving people access to semi-automatic assault rifles again,” Mr Cahill said.