Following a rare mass shooting in late 2023 that left the Czech Republic and much of Europe in shock, the Czech Parliament has taken significant steps to further tighten the nation’s already strict gun control laws. The tragic event, which resulted in 14 fatalities and numerous injuries at a Charles University building in downtown Prague, motivated lawmakers to move legislation already in the works prior to the shooting faster in order to make private gun ownership even more strictly regulated. The assailant, it turns out, was a 24-year-old student with a license for eight firearms, including two long guns. He carried out the mass killing without having any prior criminal record.
In response, both houses of the Czech Parliament have now approved changes aimed at increasing the requirements for gun ownership. The legislation, pending signature by President Petr Pavel, is expected to become law soon.
The revised gun law mandates more frequent medical checks for gun owners, reducing the interval from every 10 years to every five years. It is not clear what this does short of makes legislators feel like they are doing something.
Furthermore, it introduces obligations for businesses to alert police about suspicious transactions related to firearms and ammunition. Additionally, the legislation grants doctors the ability to access databases to verify if their patients possess gun licenses.
According to U.S. News & World Report, “Interior Minister Vit Rakusan reflected on the difficulty of predicting whether the new regulations could have averted the tragedy had they been in place sooner.” Logic dictates it would most likely have not given the man in question had no prior criminal activity and had to that point done until he evidently snapped did everything legally.
Nevertheless, the legislation received overwhelming support in the Senate, passing with a 66-1 vote in the 81-seat chamber. With President Pavel’s approval, the law will empower authorities to preemptively confiscate weapons from private individuals deemed a risk.
U.S. News & World Report said as of the end of 2022, the Czech Republic, with a population of 10.9 million, had 314,000 licensed gun owners who collectively owned nearly a million firearms.
All of europe has a history and passion for authoritarian rule. And 60yrs of communist dictatorship is difficult to throw off.
Everyone of the modern nations was once a patchwork of monarchies, absolute rulers. Such history sets the US apart from other nations.
well,..Joe gave it his best shot last night…
“well,..Joe gave it his best shot last night…”
The Dims should be properly frightened.
Agreed. Europe wants to make sure that only the Government crazies can kill its civilians…
The Czech Republic cannot be that strict if they have over a million firearms in circulation. Per Wikipedia: Gun laws in the Czech Republic in many respects differ from those in other European Union member states (see Gun laws in the European Union). The “right to acquire, keep and bear firearms” is explicitly recognized in the first Article of the Firearms Act. At the constitutional level, the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms includes the “right to defend one’s own life or life of another person also with arms under conditions stipulated by law”.
In the Czech Republic, firearms are available to anyone, subject to acquiring a firearms license. Firearm licenses may be obtained in a way similar to a driving license; by passing a proficiency exam, medical examination and having no criminal record. Unlike in most other European countries, Czech firearms legislation also permits citizens to carry concealed weapons for self-defense; 260,027 out of 316,859 gun license holders have a concealed carry license (31 December 2023).[4] The most common reason for firearm possession by Czech gun owners is for protection, with hunting and sport shooting being less common.[5] Additionally, people can join government endorsed advanced shooting training courses with their privately owned firearms and become a civilian reservist. Plus I recall that the Czechs fought like hell to refuse to comply with the EU firearms mandates–mandates that are quite strict.
The way I read this law is that it requires a physician to examine an owner every five years in an attempt to ferret out mental illness, plus a certain level of a red flag law allowing for confiscation of guns if the owner/applicant doesn’t pass the examination. My understanding of their mass shooter is that he was much like the Aurora shooter–adult onset paranoid schizophrenia. By the time his shrink diagnosed the Aurora killer, it was already too late to stop him.
“The Czech Republic cannot be that strict if they have over a million firearms in circulation”.
The govt can make firearms all but impossible to use legally (see: USA fight to keep firearms legal), and have a history of heavy-fisted policing, and civilian compliance.)
Some white european societies are just destined for tyranny. Asian and Africa are no different.
America is a very special and different place.
As the tyranny runs rampant in numerous cities, states and at the office of the President. Supported by his minions in the Liberal/Progressive Democrat party.
Financial investor Czechoslovak Group (CSG) acquires U.S. ammo division and several other Vista Outdoor brands for $1.91 billion.
CSG is 100% owned and led by Michal Strnad, who has transformed it into a leading Czech industrial group with a strong international footprint. CSG employs more than 10,000 people worldwide and it owns and manages a diverse portfolio of industrial and trade companies across the defense and civil sectors.
Czech defence group CSG plans ammunition venture in Ukraine | Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/czech-defence-group-csg-plans-ammunition-venture-ukraine-2024-03-06/
a lot of those AK’s we see in the wrong hands come from eastern Europe
Yeah that’s pretty dark man! Buy ammo now if you can. I’m doing ok due to ILLannoy banning my rifle also due to a lunatic shooting🙄☹️
it looks like it is cheaper to buy ammunition than it is to buy components for reloading.
Certainly easier.
That’s because folks who know how to reload are more dangerous than those who don’t…..to the Government.
The medical tests are long overdue in the U.S. as too many nut cases can buy firearms over the counter.
Follow the girl with a checkerd scarf.
the smartest people in the room
all know where this is headed
Any Eastern European country that wants gun control have short fookin memories!
The USSR loved it, Pootin too!
They’ll ban trampolines next out of concerns about their financial systems.
Can’t have bounced Czechs!
😂
I see what you did there.
Almost as weird as the passion for small human powered boats in RowMania.
“Interior Minister Vit Rakusan reflected on the difficulty of predicting whether the new regulations could have averted the tragedy had they been in place sooner.”
There in lies one of the falsehoods of the tyrannical anti-gun ‘gun control’ here in the U.S. – the premise that a violent person will not be able to harm others or commit murder because they don’t have a gun. Like here in the U.S. nationwide, in the Czech Republic there are thousands of violent attacks on citizens committed every day where the person committing the criminal violent attack uses something other than a firearm.
In the U.S., including knives and other non-firearm objects and methods, and including hand/feet and other methods (e.g. pushing off a high place making it look like a fall injury, blow/crushing with a heavy object falling from a height making it look like something came loose and fell on the victim, poisons, chemicals, tripping, suffocation, simulating suicide, etc…), nationwide there, as of 15 Feb 2024, are over 19,000 violent criminal attacks (an increase from 2023) on innocent victims daily that result in serious injury or death (around ~200 deaths immediately on scene, another ~200 within a week after being seriously injured due to ‘complications’ from the injuries sustained in the attack). The average rate of arrest AND prosecution (no matter the method, firearms used or not) was 3% prior 2023, for such perpetrator activity. In 2023 less than an average of 2% of the perpetrators are arrested AND prosecuted.
People wonder why these intentionally caused by perpetrators deaths and injuries do not show in stats. The reason is simple, they are hidden in plain sight by the way stats are kept. For example, the FBI stats for murder reflect those for which the perpetrator was arrested AND prosecuted. The next problem is those that die later as a result of their injury in the attack – 98% of the time the cause of death is not listed as due to the use of the non-firearm object but rather the body function/organ that failed as a result of ‘complications’ due to the serious injury so this means there are thousands of these in the CDC stats listed under ‘body function/organ’ failure categories that were really murder. Thus we have over 3,000,000 cases of criminally inflicted violence annually that were conducted using ‘things’ or methods which were not firearms, and they are ‘hidden’ in plain sight by the way ‘stats’ are kept and when you get access for research you find all this in the police reports and the public at large never sees those reports.
Thus the great deception of ‘gun violence’ supposed ‘epidemic’ put forth by anti-gun here in the U.S. . They put forth the ‘stats’ but when you get access for research you find all this in the police reports and find that ‘non-firearm’ ‘things’ and methods are used by criminally violent people ~1000 times more often than a firearm.
Clarification for : “In the U.S., including knives and other non-firearm objects and methods…”
This is > For violent crimes where a firearm was not used, excluding the violent crimes of rape and intimate/domestic partner attacks. And also excluding acts of violence against victims committed during robbery or home invasion or in other words attacks upon victims in public spaces outside the home and not in a business being robbed).
Clarification for inclusion context for: “over 19,000 violent criminal attacks”
When the violent crimes of rape and intimate/domestic partner attacks, and acts of violence against victims committed during robbery or home invasion, and still being violent crimes where a firearm was not used: This number rises to more than 30,000 victims daily across the United States.
Czech Republic has the loosest firearms laws in the entire European Union.
They allow concealed carry for self protection and hundreds of thousands of citizens carry in a nation of only 10 million.
Decreasing the psychological exam from 10 to 5 years has no effect on the average carrier.
A new red flag law could be a problem, however