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The Slingshot Channel’s Jorge Sprave wants to set the record straight about German gun laws. Herr Sprave’s upbeat tone betrays the fact that Germans don’t have gun rights. They have gun privileges — subject to stringent government regulation. Including a ban on firearms for self-defense. Laws that restrict legal ownership to 1 million (out of 80 million) Germans. “Germanys gun laws are great,” one viewer comments. “I wish america had these laws.” No thanks. Anyway, JG’s video gives us a [dimly lit] look at his gun collection. Why am I not surprised he’s got a Desert Eagle? 

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71 COMMENTS

  1. Here’s hoping his next project is a slingshot that shoots handguns with an add on that fires the gun as it leaves the slingshot.

  2. Is it wrong of me that I want to give this man a trip to America, a manufacturer’s license, a fully stocked machine shop and an excessively large budget just to see what he can create

  3. Drop somebody on your living room stealing from you in Germany and you’ll be in jail before the summer comes up.

  4. This is BS, you can not own a gun in Germany for self defense, its very hard and rare to get a collector permit and this is propaganda to try to get us in the US to believe that we can have more gun control and still have guns. Total BS. I as a gun owner don’t buy this crap at all.

    • I didn’t see anywhere where he said you could have guns for self defense. In fact I definitely heard him say it is impossible to get a carry permit and you must keep your guns locked up at all times.

      • Correct and even worse if you did somehow shoot someone in selfdefense you would be the one going to prison.
        (Or so I am in formed by my friend “Hans”)

  5. ” Why am I not surprised he’s got a Desert Eagle?”

    Because you could easily imagine the Jorge Sprave trademark belly-laugh the first time he squeezed off a round.

    *sigh*

    Jorge needs to work on his trigger discipline…

    • “……Jorge needs to work on his trigger discipline…”

      I was watching him with his finger on the various triggers and pressing said triggers without checking chamber first and cringing the whole time….. Then he started talking about needing to take a written exam to show that you know what you’re doing around firearms and he lost me….. I dont know if they have the same 4 basic rules in Germany but all i could think about after that point was “ATF guy” saying how he was the only one professional enough to use this gun…..

  6. And here in Pennsylvania we’ve got OVER A MILLION people with licenses to carry. A state-approved gun safe? Don’t own one. Belong to a gun club? Nope. Took a test for a license? Nope. Need a license just to purchase? Nope.

    Big difference between a Privilege and a Right. And the sad part is, he’s perfectly happy to be one of the privileged few and cannot even comprehend the difference between a privilege and a right.

  7. Sounds like reasonable and sensible German gun laws to me.
    Laws that restrict legal ownership to 1 million (out of 80 million) Germans. 6 million guns in private ownership. I think Indiana easily would outgun Germany in private ownership.
    Germany is a great place to be FROM.

  8. Of course he has a Desert Eagle … he is a Bond villain after all!

    (The contraptions that he demonstrates on YouTube are just a cover story to explain all of his tools and his activities in his machine shop!)

  9. Saw this the other day and took offense to his assertion that germany is too densely populated to allow for unsupervised shooting. “Catastrophic” he says it would be. It seems as though foreigners really do think our shootings are mostly unintentional, and commited by drunken yokels shooting at beer cans in the woods.

    • Unfortunately here in Ohio that is exactly what happens. We have had many people get killed because of Morons shooting irresponsibly. The last big law limiting shotguns to 3 shots during deer season came about because of some fool that fired across a road and killed a woman going to work. In another instance a young girl was killed while driving by some HillJack that shot a muzzle loader off into the air to clear the gun. What the German fellow said makes perfect sense its just a shame that here in America we put freedom above human life. Obscene, immoral and outrageous.

      • “… its just a shame that here in America we put freedom above human life. Obscene, immoral and outrageous.”

        jlp,

        Without freedom we don’t really have a life, just an existence. I am sure you have heard the saying, “Live life to the fullest.” That cannot happen without freedom.

        Freedom is not a problem. Ignorance and irresponsibility are the problem. The examples that you sited (assuming they are true, I have not verified them) are examples of someone being ignorant and irresponsible. And because they harmed someone, those ignorant and irresponsible people should go to prison for a LONG time. Demanding that people be responsible and holding them accountable for their actions is the right solution.

        Your solution — blanket suppression of everyone’s freedoms — treats everyone as toddlers. THAT is obscene, immoral, and outrageous.

        • Wrong again. Constitutional freedom was never intended to be unlimited. You do not have the freedom to irresponsibly kill people. That is self evident. These incidents only show the lack of mandatory training and the fact that the German viewpoint has a lot of merit. You can always count on a fool to act like one and that goes double when you have no mandatory training as that makes the rule makers even more irresponsible than the morons who kill people.

          Your a carbon copy of Chip who constantly states, “don’t worry about it because the dead body count is not high enough” and for him and you it will never be high enough until one day it happens to you or one of your relatives and then the dim light bulb goes on and you start to sing and dance to a different tune. It happens every time and tragically is what we call ” poetic justice”.

        • jlp,

          I unequivocally asserted that we do NOT have the “freedom” to kill people (my comment about the hunters in your examples going to prison for LONG time).

          Your assertion that government should treat all of us like toddlers is obscene. And your supposed rationale is equally a failure since both examples that you cited involves hunters who violated their MANDATORY HUNTER SAFETY training with their actions. That’s right — hunter safety training is mandatory in Ohio and every other state that I know of. In spite of that training, hunters have managed to kill themselves and (almost exclusively) other hunters from time to time … as do downhill skiers, snowboarders, snowmobilers, water skiers, bicyclists, motorcyclists, hikers, campers, and everyone else under the sun.

          Everything presents a risk to our lives, everything, literally. Demanding that government prohibit anything and everything that presents some level of risk is a fools’s game. Rather than spending energy to get government to treat everyone like toddlers, why not expend that energy actually educating people and enlightening them to be responsible and sensible in their actions?

          Bonus: government employees by-and-large are anything but the pinnacle of virtue, aptitude, motivation, productivity, and accuracy. What makes you think those government employees would somehow save the day, every day? If you are going to excuse the fact that their performance will be less than stellar, how is it that we can excuse less than stellar performance from government employees without excusing less than perfect performance from firearms owners?

        • You are totally ignorant as to the very vast, vast difference between “professional well thought out German safety courses and requirements to get a license even to become a fisherman. It makes American courses look pathetic to say the least. I have been through both Hunter Safety courses and conceal carry courses. Some were good but many were a joke and conducted totally unprofessionally and anyone that was still breathing passed with no requirement for additional training if they did not pass or understand what was being taught to them.

          This was not my main point of the debate either. But rather that having no laws that prevent Morons from just walking out their door and blasting away has resulted in many unnecessary deaths and injuries. As our German poster stated, this is not tolerated in Germany because of population density but what he did not realize (because he does no live in the U.S.) is that there are many, many places in the U.S. that have population density that sometimes even surpasses Germany’s. Here in Ohio there is absolutely nowhere you can safely go out on “the back 40” and blast away without putting someone in danger. The example I gave of the Moron with the muzzle loader is one of many down though the years. This is why the German law requiring approved places to shoot really makes sense and I agree with the German law 110 per cent. Anyone who would argue against such a law is probably too irresponsible to even own a firearm and that certainly according to “your own post” puts you right at the top of that category.

        • It’s not good enough to go shooting to perfectly safe place like quarry until the almighty state rubber stamps it. You just can’t be trained by your father or friend even if it means lifetime of experience unless you pass some state mandated course. Nanny goverment will keep us safe. Right jlp? Statists are gonna state and communists are the worst statists.

        • jlp,

          “Here in Ohio there is absolutely nowhere you can safely go out on ‘the back 40’ and blast away without putting someone in danger.”

          I have personally seen countless locations in northern Ohio and southeastern Ohio where it is perfectly safe to blast away on “the back 40”. Your statement that there is “absolutely nowhere you can safely go” to shoot is demonstrably false.

          “Anyone who would argue against such a law is probably too irresponsible to even own a firearm and that certainly according to ‘your own post’ puts you right at the top of that category.”

          And yet I am not in prison nor a “prohibited person” resulting from a negligent discharge, injury, or homicide … even though I have managed to shoot thousands of rounds without any dangerous incidents. Surely, if I were such an irresponsible bumbling idiot, I would have done something by now that landed my in prison.

          No jlp. Responsible and safe firearm handling is exceedingly simple. It does NOT require hours of exhaustive training and testing. It only requires a person to master three simple rules:
          (1) Keep your finger off the trigger until your firearm is pointing at a known target with a safe background.
          (2) Keep your firearm pointed in a safe direction at all times.
          (3) Empty your firearm’s magazine and chamber — and visually verify that both are unloaded — before cleaning a firearm, learning how to manipulate a firearm, handing a firearm to someone else, dry-fire practice with a firearm, etc.
          It takes a teacher all of 5 minutes to teach and demonstrate these rules. It takes a student all of 5 minutes to demonstrate that they have learned these rules themselves. This is evident in the fact that 99,999,700 of the 100,000,000 firearms owners in our nation managed to NOT negligently shoot their firearms and harm anyone last year. And you would know that if you actually ever bothered to learn how to handle and shoot firearms.

  10. Germans own a lot of guns. I mean, you know, relative to other Europeans.

    Oddest thing I found out is that it’s illegal to have a laser or light attached to a firearm there, I suppose because neither has a legitimate hunting or sporting use.

  11. I couldn’t watch it all the way through. I was truly saddend by his acceptance of govt control. “You can’t obviously take it to the mall” Need a good reason to have a gun, huh? How about I want to stop a murderous assault on my person? How’s that stack up against a sporting club membership? Sorry, Hans. No sale. You are not free and you are at the mercy of your earthly masters. Truly sad. It makes me value my rights all the more. God bless America.

  12. “Massa says if I be a good boy he’s done give me a license ya gets a gun he says I can handle. Then says Massa he lets me go to a special place where he can watch over me when I shoots it! I love my Massa, he done treats me so good.”

    F that, shoot Massa and be a free man you pathetic brain washed slave! There is no ALLOWING someone to have a taste of their natural rights.

    • ^^^^this^^^^

      Sir, I applaud you. As a German myself, I can only say: ‘great humor, spot on’. I did survive mugging once, in the oh-so-calm-and-orderly Germany (West). Got full protection from the police afterwards. Would rather have full unalienable right to defend myself.

      The police, when asked about a permit, inquired ‘if I have got the idea to carry from the USA’.
      ‘Not at all’ I answered.
      ‘Finland is the country I’ve been to’.
      They were speechless for a while. Then, I was told ‘to carry a cell, and give them a quick call, when any out-of-order action happens’.

      Well…

  13. I’m sorry… you lost me at the short barreled H&K MP5….

    That guy’s laugh though. LOL…. amazing.

    • I think you mean standard barreled MP5. Short barreled is made up crap that got foisted on us almost 100 years ago and yet we don’t call it out for what it is like we do with ‘high capacity’ magazines.

  14. Lots of critical comments about those German gun laws – and rightly so. It is however very, very difficult to change the laws if the government has already made them. I wish for the sake of Germans and other countries with similar or even more restrictive laws that they had better rights. If the USA didn’t have that 2nd ammendment and the strength of the NRA etc the situation could be different. So be wary and thank these videos makers for giving you a good reason to fight hard against the Clinton/Obama/Bloomberg gang….

    • This is very true. I live in Sweden and we have similar laws as in Germany. I would very much like to be able to have a 2nd amendment but on the other hand I have suppressors SBRs and also machineguns. But with stupid licensing and a very complicated system to get that license. I do not like it but I do not wish to break any laws, no matter how stupid they are. I do fight for better laws and my dream would be US laws without all your BS, because you do have a lot of stupid laws in the US as well.

  15. Guys, thanks for discussing my video. I produced it to clarify the many misunderstandings about gun laws in Germany.

    It is correct, here we don’t have gun rights, but privileges. This is probably the case because our constitution is not the result of a successful revolution. In any case, I like being privileged…

    Germany is a very, very safe place. I know that there is this blubbering about the new year’s eve atrocities, but keep in mind that this is a very rare thing EVER to happen in Germany. Also, in that crowd, anyone using a firearm would no doubts have caused injured/killed bystanders.

    Here, you can walk alone through each and every part of the town, even in the darkest hours of the night. I personally wouldn’t WANT to carry a gun, simply for the same reason I don’t carry lots of loose change – I hate the dead weight in my pocket.

    In the US, that is an entirely different issue. With so many guns out there, you pretty much HAVE to be armed to protect yourself. That is simply NOT the case here. Should that change, then believe me, Germans would balk and vote for a party that will adapt the law accordingly.

    Last not least, freedom isn’t just guns. Here in Germany, I can drive on the Autobahn as fast as I want. Did 250 km/h just yesterday, for long stretches. Driving over a perfectly straight, empty interstate in the US with not even half that speed sure does feel like oppression to me. But hey, the Master told me that for me, 75 mph is enough, as anything above that is not good for me. So I am happy with that 🙂

    • While our gun laws here a generally much better than in Europe, we also have plenty of stupid-assed laws. Your comment about speed limits being one of many. It hurts me that I cannot max my tuned STI unless I’m at a track. BTW-I enjoy your videos. As an engineer I appriciate the design creativity and they are generally damn funny.

    • > Here, you can walk alone through each and every part of the town, even in the darkest hours of the night.

      That is the case for you, a large male. My friend works as self-defence instructor in Nuremberg area. All his courses (and he has tripled them since last year) are full. Most women, girls attending have personal experience of being sexually assaulted.

      >I personally wouldn’t WANT to carry a gun, simply for the same reason I don’t carry lots of loose change – I hate the dead weight in my pocket.

      I carry everyday the same as tens of thousands of other Czechs. Czech Republic is no less safe than Germany, and recently quite probably becoming much safer. Many 20something from Western Europe are actually moving to the Czech Republic and citing safety as their primary motive to do so.

      But fair enough. You don’t like to carry “dead weight” in the pocket. Nobody forces you. Nobody forces any American, Czech to do so. That is not the point. The point is about having the possibility of doing so.

      > Driving 250 kph on highway
      I too enjoyed driving 240 to IWA last week. However, the difference is, that if I drove 130 (as is the Czech limit), I would get there the same.

      If I were in situation when I needed a gun but didn’t have any, chances are I would never need it again. So much about driving fast being the same attribute of freedom as being armed.

      • Bungameng,

        Thank you for your comments. I really like hearing perspectives from Europe, especially the Czech Republic since they have concealed carry.

        Oh, and my compliments to your English … it is practically flawless! (And far better than many people who have had 12 years of schooling in the United States!)

        Please keep providing comments on this site!

    • Thank you for the video Jörg … I thoroughly enjoy all of your videos.

      The common point to all of our comments: all governments have a LOT of bad/stupid laws. Some just have more than others. The United States and Germany are no exceptions.

    • Jörg,

      Your idea that everyone in the United States needs a firearm to walk around town safely at night is not accurate.

      First of all, a very small percentage of people (at most 5%???) have concealed carry licenses and actually carry a handgun around town. That means 19 out of 20 people walking around town are not armed. And in many places, probably 299 out of 300 people are not armed.

      Second of all, criminals involved in criminal activity in urban areas are responsible for about 75% of ALL violent crime in the United States (whether or not a firearm is involved). If you are not a criminal and avoid urban cores with lots of criminals, you will experience a lower violent crime rate than Western Europe.

      The really interesting question is whether or not the violent crime rate would be higher in the United States if no one could legally carry handguns in public. I suspect our violent crime rate would be higher.

    • Less then 1% f the Autobahn is free.

      Jörg,

      You know that and I know that: there is no speeding on the Autobahn. Pretty all of the highway network in Germany is heavily regulated. Traffic signs galore, speed limits everywhere (o’er 99% of the motorways are heavily limited), and then comes construction sites. Checkered tarmac of dubious quality does the rest.

      So, if you prefer to fantasize of ‘long stretches’ please tell the TTAGgers that those stretches are a whole mile long… or three miles, comes angels and unicorns.

      Be real on each piece of information.

      • Well I drove to IWA last week and almost entire section of highway between Czech border and Nuremberg was no limits. When I drive to Switzerland I’d say that close to 70% of the track is no limit.

        Of course, if you had the experience of driving mostly around large cities or in densely populated areas like Rhineland and Saarland, you got different experience.

        Otherwise the point Jorg is trying to make, i.e. “I may (MAY being the operative word, not shall) have guns after huge amount of red tape)” or “I can have knives at home” is about as good as someone showcasing his car collection in a country where it is forbidden to drive on public roads.

      • According to the “ADAC” (largest automobile club in Germany), 27% of the total Autobahn length has a permanent speed limit, plus another 7% is temporarily limited (due to construction). 66% is unlimited.

        I have to do a lot of driving and I can assure you: I do PLENTY of (legal) speeding on every trip.

        Do I arrive faster? A bit, maybe. Certainly not much. But I don’t care. I enjoy it, simple as that.

        Do I need 34 guns? Not really, no. In fact I don’t need a single gun. I enjoy them, simple as that.

        Where is the country that offers freedom for BOTH of those desires?

        • The US used to, at least in Montana, but they have since added a speed limit back; it is 80 mph max. Currently the fastest speed limit in the US is in Texas – 85 mph (137 km/h). Texas also has some decent firearms laws, though much more restricted than others. The best place (probably in the world) for the combination of legally having a variety of guns in public AND driving fast on public highways is probably Kansas, with constitutional carry (meaning you can carry any legal firearm openly or concealed with no license), all NFA stuff is legal (silencers, full auto, short-barreled shotguns and short-barreled rifles), and the max highway speed limit is 80 mph (129 km/h). Of course if one is only concerned with de facto laws, as enforced, then there are probably places in the mid-east and, perhaps, northern Africa, where speed laws are non-existent and/or not enforced and the gun laws are also not effectively enforced. In those places you could indulge both without worrying about getting arrested, unless a cop decides they want to.

  16. I live in Hawaii, and as the police illegally kidnapped, uh I mean arrested me for allegedly taking an incriminating video of one of the protected, priviliged caste (In this case, the ex “forensic scientist LOL” of H.P.D. who was her neighbor) making death threats against me and my elderly mom, I was told that these “constitutional rights” are priviliges for a lower caste subhuman as myself. They said that I was a “threat to public safety” even after they illegally stole my guns because I “knew how to use a gun” and because of my prolific photography of those of a higher caste as they terrorized my elderly mom in a mocking fashion. Somehow, Mohammed Hassan of 4011 Kaimuki Ave., Honolulu, Hawaii, 96816, faced no charges and was protected by the local police and court system (probably because the corrupt parts of the state would have to answer if they exposed him as a fraud) as he would make false complaints against my elderly mom and, every so often, hold us at gunpoint on our property and boast he was going to murder us and nothing was going to happen to him. Oh well, a bunch of other cockroach like snitches were doing the same thing, protected by the local “Federal Police” (whoever they are, that is what was on their shirts and the police obeyed them) so according to the provincial codes which override the entire concept of good and evil, since they never will face prison, they didn’t do anything wrong. Rant over. I must be lying because this was not on the television news.

  17. Notice the MP5. We in America are banned from owning brand new full auto weapons so who really has more freedom in full auto arms. They do the Germans.

  18. Notice the MP5. Here in America we are banned from owning brand new full auto arms. So who has more freedom in that category. They do, the Germans.

  19. I think to0 that the German laws requiring training is long overdue in the U.S. When you look at all the gun accidents in the U.S. (I am not just speaking of fatalities but all accidents) you begin to realize how important firearms safety training is and we do not have much of it that is required as it should be.

  20. I wonder if the attitude in some European countries are changing due to all their wonderful “guests” they have been inviting in lately. Maybe now they under stand the problems we have. The United States has been letting in every piece of trash that can walk through the borders for generations.

    • No they are not. I have had several long discussions with friends from France, Spain, Italy, Germany. First of all they are horrified when they learn that I CC regularly. Then even when debated in weeks after terrorist attacks, these people still stick to the argument that only the police should be armed.

      They are literally brainwashed into believing that it is wrong for civilian to discharge a potentially deadly force in defence of self or others.

      They are literally brainwashed into believing that firearm ownership and/or concealed carry inevitably leads to large scale intentional and unintentional street massacres as seen in TV newsreels from US.

  21. I posted a link to this page, including comments, on the video’s Uboob page. Here’s his response to my post:
    “I don’t think that they hate my video over there. They just point out that in Germany, we have gun privileges, not gun rights. That is the truth. But I like being privileged, in fact.”

    • Jörg’s explainations on the German gun laws are mostly correct. His opinion pieces are just that: opinions.

      Never liked the forced laughs. Jörg might want to come across as Hickock45, but it is a gross miss. Staying with the original yippieing of Hickock45 — his laughs are placed rightly, everyone of them states that the man enjoys his life and his filmmaking.

      Laughing aside: Jörg gives a correct account on some of the German gun lawmaking. I wish him well.

  22. Your Republican God Reagan banned the civilian owndership of new manufactured full auto arms. You, not I are the one who is brain dead.

  23. For a video that was supposed to say how nonrestrictive their gun/weapon laws are it sure gave me the feeling that their gun laws are capriciously and ridiculously restrictive.

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