EUGunBan: Push for 2A in the Czech Republic

Between Czech and Swiss model, which one do you consider better?

  • Switzerland: generally easier access to firearms, but forget concealed carry

  • Czech Republic: higher innitial hurdle - must gain license first, but shall issue concealed carry


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I've added a new section on history of Czech gun laws to the Wikipedia:

Gun_laws_in_the_Czech_Republic#History

Some interesting facts that I learned while researching the issue:
- Habsburgs are considered enemy occupants in the country. Yet gun laws were pretty permissive during their rule.
- Even after the failed 1848 revolution, the new gun law remained permissive.
- As the ethnic German minority's paramilitary groups started terrorist operations in 1938, a new Firearms Act was adopted that aimed at introducing licensing also for firearms possession. It never got into force as history started moving pretty fast. Also the fact that Germany was smuggling weapons to the terrorists frustrated its purpose.
- Communist ban got less restrictive in 1983. The rules of late communist Czechoslovakia seem pretty similar to today's rules in, say, Germany.
- While there was significant liberalization following 1990, things like concealed carry full auto or full-autos converted to semi-autos as shall issue became possible only after 2002 (as well as number of other funs, like PDW).

Let me know your thoughts, please do not hesitate to correct my English.
 
Just in case anyone was interested in this level of detail of something that happened in Senate two months ago but what may be quite indicative.

24 July 2017: The proposal was officially handed over from the Chamber of Deputies to the Senate. Before this happened, the Permanent Senate Committee for Constitution and Parliamentary Procedures adopted on 11 July 2017 Resolution No. 5 which labels the proposal as "useless and potentially harmful". Out of 8 Senators present, 6 supported the Resolution proposed by Committee's chair and former Constitutional Court Justice Eliška Wagnerová. Two senators abstained.

The full text of the Resolution is here and I must admit that the recent update of Google Translate was quite something, so here is automated translation.
Wow. Not good. Thanks for posting the translated version- that was quite informative. The opposition's position is eye-opening- they are arguing based on relative lack of legal precedence. That the proposal is right/good/necessary is irrelevant from this point of view. Scary stuff.
 
I thought the Czech Republic was one of the best countries in Europe for gun owners. Is it under threat from the EU gun control directive, or more from within the country?
 
From my understanding:
I thought the Czech Republic was one of the best countries in Europe for gun owners. Yes
Is it under threat from the EU gun control directive Yes
or more from within the country? Apathy by Czech politicians is threatening to allow the EU to trample Czech sovereignty by not standing firm against the directive

@Snejdarek and others can correct me if I'm off base...
 
Switzerland is under a similar threat from the EU gun ban. Will be interesting to see if it proceeds to a referendum and if Switzerland will end up withdrawing from Schengen. The Swiss have already had some tussles with Brussels with regards to Schengen
 
UPDATE:

A petition against the EU Gun Ban signed by over 100.000 people underwent public debate in the Senate. While most of the speakers from general public were gun owners, the two senators who participated were vehemently opposed to the proposed Constitutional Amendment.

Now it seems that there is a strong push for the proposal to be postponed instead of being voted on as scheduled on 11 October. While some claim that the main reason is that most Senate Committees did not have time to submit their opinion on the proposal, other claim that there proposals for laws accompanying the amendment should be drafted first.

Just that you better understand why it is impossible to know what the vote will look like, this is what our Senate looks like:

542aa7eb85910e69600f89fd84e8c82ebab6724f.png

If that was not enough, most Senators don't really feel bound to vote along the official party line. In general, they feel they are in their seat in order to "correct" the mistakes made by the Chamber of Deputies which is more politicized.

Anyways, as the parties go:
ČSSD - Social Democrats / left - the original authors and main backers, should be overwhelmingly pro (yet their most visible senator is also one of those most vocal against the proposal)
KDU-ČSL - Christian Democratic Party / right - the only party that had clear "against vote" in the chamber of deputies. The only party for the 10% minority of believers in this atheist country. Majority of their voters are coming from rural areas where ownership of hunting firearms is considered the norm. I do believe that their clear stance against the amendment will lose them this election. They are currently polling under the 5% threshold needed to enter the Chamber of Deputies
ODS - right - the party that pledged "not to implement the Directive even if it means facing EU sanctions" - should be overwhelmingly pro
ANO - center / populist - no clear position on the amendment, only now with the election nearing did their chair clearly say they will support the amendment / Their MEP Dita Charanzová did most work in the European Parliament of all the 750 MEPs as regards watering down the EU Gun Ban
STAN - "City mayors and independents" - probably against
Zelení - green party - clearly against
and then there's the rest which are mostly impossible to tell.

Some pics from the senate from the petition facebook page:

22221763_1816400158371605_650212674165688142_n.jpg Adam Týc

22154258_1816395155038772_7761962113894427646_n.jpg Czech hunting association head
22195225_1816373031707651_3319037299267966409_n.jpg Senator Jiří Dientsbier / ČSSD / long time gun control advocate
22195536_1816308808380740_2502248171369308077_n.jpg Pavel Černý, author of the petition (right)

22141229_1816308781714076_2849975089979033237_n.jpg
 
Interesting that the Green party are against. Traditionally, Green parties in countries tend to be far on the left, and so tend to be anti-gun. Thanks for the update, keep fighting!
 
That was very informative and interesting, @Snejdarek - thanks for those details!

@Blackstone - The proposal for Constitutional Amendment is a (potential) Czech law to protect Czech gun rights. This proposal is in opposition to the EU Gun Directive. So Zeleni (Green) being against the proposal is consistent with what you expected about Green parties.
 
Thanks for the explanation, I guess I'm equally surprised that the social Democrats (left) want to protect gun rights in this case

They did their math on it. And it seems that it will pay off.

The two parties that wanted to gain points by presenting themselves as the righteous and sensible opposition to this "idiotic proposal" (KDU + TOP09) are now both polling under 5% needed to enter the chamber. As it turns out, there are many who care for having gun rights protected, and few to none who care about opposing the proposal.

Also, you might be even more surprised to learn that the COMMUNIST party is also heavily supporting the proposal. This is part of their anti-EU anti-NATO crusade (also, during communism, only those loyal to the party could own firearms, so part of their voter base consists of the older hunters). / We are the only post-socialist country where the local communist party was not forced to change name/appearance. / Also, there is this old election joke in the Czech Republic: "Who will you vote for?" "The Communists." "Yes, but in which party?" (i.e. most current parties have former members of the communist party in their high ranks, i.e. people who left the communist party immediately after the Velvet Revolution).
 
So, general elections into the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament are done. This will not have direct effect on the ongoing amendment process as this does not concern Senate, it is however important for the process of implementation of the EU Directive that will be on the shoulders of the next government notwithstanding whether the Constitutional Amendment will pass.

641084-top_foto1-gacyb.jpg

Chamber of Deputies = 200 seats.

78 seats ANO (+31) / center right, populist / gun neutral
25 seats ODS (+9) / right, conservative / pro gun (party which pledged not to implement the EU Gun Ban even if it means facing sanctions from EU)
22 seats Pirates (+ 22) / left, liberal (aka "Internet generation communists") / gun neutral
22 seats SPD (+ 22) / extreme right, populist, anti-islamist / pro gun
15 seats KSČM (- 18) / extreme left, communists / pro gun
15 seats ČSSD (-35) / center left, liberal / pro gun (their minister of interior proposed the amendment and stood behind the suit against the EU gun ban - them losing the Ministry of Interior might be potentially extremely bad for gun rights)
10 KDU (- 4) / right, conservative Christian / anti gun
7 TOP 09 (- 19) / right, conservative / anti gun
6 STAN (+ 6) / right, liberal / anti gun

Normally, I would consider this OKish outcome, however given that we are now facing EU Gun Ban, "gun neutral" parties on the top means pretty bad outcome, i.e. what would normally mean preservation of status quo may now lead to compliance with the EU Gun Ban.

On the other hand, ANO needs at least 101 votes to form a government and it seems likely that they would have to rely on a pro-gun party which might demand having the Ministry of Interior for themselves.

In the long run, the fact that ČSSD heavily supported gun rights and then became major loser in these elections might come haunt us one day (on the other hand, they failed to show the same determination in the Senate, unlike ODS which fared not that bad).
 
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Personally, I wouldn't call ANO a gun neutral party because the party leader is a major user of EU subsidies and, as such, he is bound to work with EU rather than risk losing a valuable source of revenues for his company.
Our current government is also up to some kind of shady business it seems. We don't have all the details but it seems they might have pushed for a quick change of the current law to comply with the EU directive. It should be in the least required by the directive but it's still a step in the wrong direction.
 
Personally, I wouldn't call ANO a gun neutral party because the party leader is a major user of EU subsidies and, as such, he is bound to work with EU rather than risk losing a valuable source of revenues for his company.

1) ANO Member of the European Parliament Dita Charanzová is the person who singlehandidly brought the EU Gun Ban from completely bonkers to what it is today. Without her, we would be most probably looking at full Modern Sporting Rifle ban. Nobody in the European Parliament did as much for our cause as she did.
2) 39 out of 43 Czech Parliament ANO Members voted for the adoption of the Constitutional Amendment. That was before Babiš officially supported the effort (which happened weeks later and was arguably done only to appease voters before elections).
3) Non/implementation of the EU Gun Ban will not have any effect on Babiš' EU subsidies. European Court may impose daily fines in tens/hundreds of thousands of Euros (paid from the Czech state budget) but it may not be used as a pretext for cutting of any EU financing.

Our current government is also up to some kind of shady business it seems. We don't have all the details but it seems they might have pushed for a quick change of the current law to comply with the EU directive. It should be in the least required by the directive but it's still a step in the wrong direction.

Here is everything in great detail on Government website: https://apps.odok.cz/veklep-detail?pid=KORNAQ2GBBQR
Here is press release: http://www.ceska-justice.cz/2017/10...ich-velke-novele-bude-predchazet-rychla-mala/

they might have pushed for a quick change of the current law to comply with the EU directive

Any change of law would have to be approved by the Parliament (unlike in US or UK where the Government has quite a lot more powers, e.g. Presidential Decrees in US), which brings us back to

78 seats ANO (+31) / center right, populist / gun neutral
25 seats ODS (+9) / right, conservative / pro gun (party which pledged not to implement the EU Gun Ban even if it means facing sanctions from EU)
22 seats Pirates (+ 22) / left, liberal (aka "Internet generation communists") / gun neutral
22 seats SPD (+ 22) / extreme right, populist, anti-islamist / pro gun
15 seats KSČM (- 18) / extreme left, communists / pro gun
15 seats ČSSD (-35) / center left, liberal / pro gun (their minister of interior proposed the amendment and stood behind the suit against the EU gun ban - them losing the Ministry of Interior might be potentially extremely bad for gun rights)
10 KDU (- 4) / right, conservative Christian / anti gun
7 TOP 09 (- 19) / right, conservative / anti gun
6 STAN (+ 6) / right, liberal / anti gun

and to

it seems likely that they would have to rely on a pro-gun party which might demand having the Ministry of Interior for themselves

Right now the most important question is whether a pro-gun party will get Ministry of Interior, because its Minister will be drafting the new law.

Fingers crossed for ODS.
 
Hope all of our Czech friends made it through Storm Herwart okay?

Thank you for asking, very kind of you.



In Central Europe, unless a huge flood hits the region, the natural disasters reach only level of nuisance. Bar some personal tragedies, the disasters never reach the level of natural and follow-up social disorder that we are used to see in the US. Which makes authorities seem that more capable (as there are less issues to deal with) and personal need to be armed not really arising.

I always wondered why Americans seem to always build houses strong as a haystack in windy areas and buildings strong as a pile of mud in flood areas, as this is totally alien to us. Then I saw this today and I got ultimate answer to anyone American who would like to point a finger at us living in a socialist country.
 
The UK government are seeking to ban rifles with a muzzle velocity of over 10,000 ft.lbf (ie. 50 cal) and MARS/lever release action rifles. Their reasoning is that they are worried that terrorists will somehow gain access to such guns, and will leave the police outgunned.

MARS and lever release rifles are designed to allow shooters to own "almost" semi-automatic centerfire rifles. In the case of the MARS rifle, the first trigger pull fires the weapon. The bolt cycles and locks back. A second trigger pull sends the bolt forwards, chambering a second round. As this is no longer self-loading, it is UK legal. For lever release rifles, again the bolt locks back after firing, but the shooter can the press a button or actuate a lever (with the thumb of the shooting hand) to send the bolt forwards. For a competent operator, this allows close to semi-automatic rates of fire.
 
I won't be surprised at all to see MARS/lever release actions as the only legal AR actions in California at some point in the future, based on your description. They are almost to that point as it is, what with the legislation that was passed recently and goes into effect in 2018(ish)?
 
The UK government are seeking to ban rifles with a muzzle velocity of over 10,000 ft.lbf (ie. 50 cal) and MARS/lever release action rifles. Their reasoning is that they are worried that terrorists will somehow gain access to such guns, and will leave the police outgunned.

Sorry for being this frank, but given that UK was alongside France one of the main forces behind the EU Gun Ban I am really glad that you are out of the EU.
 
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