Wednesday, January 11, 2012

When Will We Gun-Happy Americans Learn?

Oh, wait...

Prosecutor shot dead during German trial
BERLIN-- German police say a 54-year-old defendant shot and killed a prosecutor during his trial in the Munich area.

Police spokesman Guenther Beck said the man opened fire Wednesday afternoon in the Dachau administrative court trial. The alleged shooter was on trial over claims he paid his employees improper wages.

[scratches head] Okay. So you were on trial for improper payment of wages. I have no idea what German law is on the subject, but I'm pretty confident that whatever punishment might have been doled out for not paying your employees correctly is going to be significantly less than, oh, say, premeditated murder. I have no idea what German gun laws are - there are few German shooting enthusiasts who frequent the gun blogs, if any of you can help out here - but I would wager they're more restrictive than most of the USA.

No law will prevent such events - they can only offer punishments severe enough to discourage folks from undertaking such events.

That is all.

Another dispatch from

(image courtesy of Robb Allen)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's not going to go over well in Bavaria.

Alexander Korchagin said...

Well, there's a pretty bad laws. Friend of mine lives there and it's impossible to have CCL if you're not connected with propper 'authority'.
You can have firearm only for sportive or hunting use. It's very expensive and take a lot of time. You can't have more than 1 gun in the same caliber. And have to explain EVERY buy...
Not that bad as england, but pretty close to.

Mikael said...

Pretty much same as sweden then, though for handguns it's sporting only, AND you don't have to explain every buy... your gun club has to certify that you need it for competition...

Mind you there was a bit of a stink in the papers last summer because someone had their 148th(or somesuch) gun licence application denied, the guy is a collector, and already had the very same model gun, which he liked shooting, and wanted another for his collection in pristine condition...

(there's also limits on how many guns you can have on a licence, though you can move them between licences if you have multiple. Hunting takes up to 10 rifles, sporting rifles takes up to 20, I think sporting pistols takes up to 20 as well, and collectors licence is unlimited).

I have a friend with more than 20 rifles, he's got the rifle licence trifecta(hunting, sporting, collecting).

Mikael said...

Oh wait, slightly off memory. 10 hunting, 10 sporting, to have more than 20 you need the collector's licence.

Btw guns on collectors licence are not allowed to be fired. And to move guns between licences means filling out paperwork and waiting for the police to go ahead the transfer.

Sebastian said...

Mikael, there's technically no upper limit on how many rifles or handguns you can have here for hunting or sport shooting from what I've understood, it's just that after your first 4 long guns for hunting, you can have another two with minimal fuss. After that they want very, very good reasons for anything more than six. Oh, and after a while the required security measures starts becoming prohibitively expensive, as few people can afford a walk-in gun vault, which I believe they start require if you have enough guns. Also, guns held on a collector's license may be fired "for demonstration", if you get a permit from the police before firing it...

As for Germany, they require a license for absolutely everything except singleshot muzzleloaders and airguns with power levels less than 7.5 Joules. Also, crossbows, pepper spray & tear gas and stun guns can be bought without a license.

Sebastian said...

Oh, and in theory there's CCW here in Sweden. Atleast last time I looked. But it's incredibly rare.

Mikael said...

When Sebastian says incredibly rare, he means "bodyguards for the royal family apply here".

My mom used to date a guy who had an SMG in his gunsafe, he was part of the swedish steel anti-sabotage unit.

That doesn't make fully automatic weapons something joe citizen can own.