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| Europe |
| Europeans turn to weapons in growing numbers after attacks |
| 2016-08-24 |
| [Foreign Desk News] Europeans in a number of countries are seeking to arm themselves with guns and self-defense devices in growing numbers following a series of attacks by gunnies and the mentally ill. Some weapons sellers also link their increased business to the arrival of huge numbers of The picture is patchy, with no up-to-date data available at a European level, leaving national and regional authorities to release statistics that are far from comprehensive and not always comparable. Reasons also vary for civilians to own guns legally, including hunting and sport as well as self-protection. Nevertheless, applications for gun permits are climbing in Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... , Austria and the Czech Republic. Their larger neighbor Germany has not followed the trend in lethal firearms, but permits for carrying devices designed to scare off assailants, such as blank guns and those that fire pepper spray, have risen almost 50 percent. Little research into the reasons for the recent apparent trend has yet been published, but the assumption is that attacks in the past year including in Gay Paree, Brussels, Nice and Munich have stirred fear among some citizens. "There's no official explanation for the rise, but in general we see a connection to Europe's terrorist attacks," said Hanspeter Kruesi, a police front man in the Swiss canton of St. Gallen. Kruesi advised against buying weapons, saying they did little to improve citizens' security while presenting problems over safe storage and raising legal questions over their proper use in a conflict. "People could actually make themselves criminally liable," he said. After he spoke to Rooters, the canton was the scene of an attack aboard a train this month. The suspect and a woman victim died later, although police said his motive was unclear. One Swiss resident who has just bought his first ever weapons - a pistol and a pump-action shotgun - pinned his decision on a feeling of insecurity created by the attacks combined with criminality that he blamed on north Africans, as well as concern over recent break-ins in his neighborhood. "Buying weapons for self-defense won't protect you from terrorist attacks," said the 55-year-old who lives in a town near the capital, Bern. "Nevertheless these attacks are contributing to a subjective sense of threat, as is the rising pressure from migration and the high crime rate among Figures are hard to come by on whether the rate of crime, serious or petty, is higher among The report from the BKA federal police in Germany - where more than a million people fleeing violence and poverty arrived last year - said if you can't say something nice about a person some juicy gossip will go well... it did not say how this compared with the overall number of crimes. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #5 "Buying weapons for self-defense won't protect you from terrorist attacks," No, but it will give you something to do while you are standing around waiting for your turn to be shot. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2016-08-24 17:51 |
| #4 The EU leaders have to hitting themselves for getting their populace to arm themselves, in any numbers, because of their policies. The serfs aren't supposed to be motivated with weapons. |
| Posted by: Charles 2016-08-24 17:17 |
| #3 |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2016-08-24 11:53 |
| #2 "Buying weapons for self-defense won't protect you from terrorist attacks," But it will channel attacks into areas more likely not able to respond as effectively. See - American urban riots (untouched neighborhoods). |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2016-08-24 09:13 |
| #1 Good choice Swiss person. Just the sound of the sawyer being cocked will run off most perps. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2016-08-24 04:49 |