Gun politics in the Czech Republic

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Gun politics in the Czech Republic are quite liberal compared to other countries in Europe. The last Gun Act was passed in 2001 and replaced the old law, tightening the legislation slightly. Generally, guns in the Czech Republic are available to anybody above 18 (or 21 for certain license categories) with clean criminal record. Self-defense is an acceptable justification to get the license. The Czech gun laws allow its citizens to carry a concealed weapon without having any specific reason.

Current Law

According to the current gun law, guns are divided into four categories:

A - Restricted firearms and accessories: Includes full automatic guns, military guns, military ammunition, some types of ammunition such as Hollow Point and other expanding bullets. Accessories such as silencers or lasers.

B - Guns requiring permit: Includes semi auto handguns, single shot and semi auto centre fire rifles and semi auto military style rifles.

C - Guns requiring registration: Includes single shot rimfire rifles and small calibre rifles.

D - Guns available to adults above 18: Includes air rifles, mechanical guns, replicas, expansion guns and 6mm Flobert.

A person must obtain the Gun Licence to be able to own gun A, B and C. To own a gun in the D category the age of 18 is required. There are four categories of gun licence; however, these should not be mistaken with the categories for guns.

A - For collecting guns

B - For sport shooting

C - For hunting

D - For person's occupation

E - For the purpose of self-defence

F - For the purpose of pyrotechnical survey

Obtaining a license

To obtain a license A, B, or C, the person must be at least 18 years old. Under special circumstances, the person need to be only 15 if a member of a sporting club or 16 if taught hunting in schools with such curriculum. To obtain license D or E, the person must be 21. Obtaining the license requires passing written and oral exam mainly concentrated on the legislation about guns and passing the shooting test. The written exam requires specific scores different for each category of license. Generally A, B, C is the easiest, and the E is the hardest, requiring almost a 100% score. The oral exam is supposed to test the person's general knowledge about guns. The shooting test requires specific scores in the standard pistol target from 10 meters. The requirements for the D license is usually from 15 m. The whole procedure is generally not difficult and the examiners tend to assess the person's performance rather liberally.

The person then applies for the gun license at the police. If no criminal records are found and the person has not had troubles with drugs or alcohol in the past the gun license is issued in several weeks.

It is also necessary to present the approval of the person's GP that they are physically and mentally fit to own and carry gun. It is fully up to the person's doctor whether he insists on them to go through psychological testing. However in reality it rarely happens.

The person can obtain more or all of the categories at once if their scores are high enough for each category. Typically people obtain E and B category because other categories will not bring any additional benefits for them. The D category is required by the law for the members of the law enforcement and does not itself permit private gun ownership.

Obtaining a license by a foreigner

Foreigner can indeed get a local gun license and permit to obtain a firearm if he or she is having legal permanent residency in Czech republic. The rules are same as for the locals (see above), but clear criminal record has to be proven in the country of origin as well as agreement of the foreigner's government that he or she is allowed to have firearms (this at least applies to the EU citizens, US citizens aren't being questioned about this). All the documents has to be translated into Czech language by an official translator.

The written test as well as the practical exam has to be passed in Czech language, but a legal interpretor/translator is allowed.

Obtaining guns

Each of the A,B,C and E categories of gun licence basically allow the person to buy any category of gun. In case of A licence the person is usually only permitted to keep them at home. In case of B the person is allowed to use their guns at the shooting ranges. The C category is required by other laws for hunting. The E category allows the person to own a gun for self-defence purpose and carry the concealed weapon on their person. All guns need to be registered after buying at the shop except for the D category.

To obtain the gun from the A category the person must ask for the Exemption from the police and demonstrate a specific reason why they want such weapon. Typically for collecting purpose or rarely working in extremely dangerous occupation like transporting large sums of money where full autos can be allowed for owning or even carrying. However the attitude to issuing permit for A category of guns is quite strict and it is usually impossible for a person to obtain it without having an obvious reason.

The B category of guns requires permit from the police. Before buying the gun the person must visit the police and fill in the "Permit to buy, own and carry" form for the particular weapon. The police will issue the permit in several days if the person has valid gun license and still has no criminal record since issuing the gun license. It is also required to have a good reason however reasons like competition shooting, hunting, collecting and even self-defense are considered good reasons according to the law.

The C category of guns can be bought in a gun shop after presenting the gun license. However the gun need to be registered later at the police.

Carrying concealed weapon

Unlike most European countries where permits to carry a concealed weapon is only issued to individuals who demonstrate a specific reason in the Czech Republic it is a common part of the citizen's right to own guns and every holder of the E category of the license is allowed to carry a concealed weapon after the formal approval is given (no justification is needed). According to the law the guns can not be carried into the courts, or at demonstrations and mass meetings. It is also generally considered irresponsible to take guns to clubs or bars even thought it is not explicitly prohibited in the law. Carrying gun while drunk is however illegal and can lead to heavy fines or losing the gun license. Carrying guns in schools and campuses is not prohibited by the law and there are no so called "Gun-free zones". Gun must be carried in a concealed manner and no more than two firearms can be carried by one person. For special purposes open carry can be allowed by the police . Carrying concealed weapon is not the subject of controversy in the Czech Republic probably because in reality it does not cause troubles. Since the Czech Republic is relatively a safe country, most people agree that they do not feel the need to permanently carry a gun for protection. Considering the number of the E category licenses there are about 200 000 people who could potentially carry a firearm however it is not clear how many of them regularly do so.

Self defense with firearms

The laws in the Czech Republic generally allow citizens to use weapons including firearms in self defense however, every incident is considered individually. It is not clear whether a person can always use a gun to defend property/life, for example if the damage would not be greater than when a weapon is used. The well known American style "Castle Doctrine" is also not applied however it is usually considered acceptable to defend from a violent home invasion with a firearm. It is also acceptable to defend from a violent attack anywhere on the street especially when a person is attacked with a knife or another deadly weapon . Shooting an unarmed attacker also occurs and becomes sometimes a subject of controversy. However several incidents from the past few years have showed that the Czech courts are moving towards more liberal interpretation of the self defense and tend not to charge people who defended themselves with any crime.

Popularity of guns

Despite the relatively liberal gun laws, guns are not especially popular in the Czech Republic. For the 10 million population there are about 300 000 licenses and over 600 000 registered firearms. The Czech Republic is home to many firearms manufacturers including Česká Zbrojovka. The famous models of handguns such as CZ 75 are very popular among Czechs. Czechs also favour various types of Glocks and M1911 clones. Long arms by Czech manufacturers are also very popular especially among Czech competition shooters or hunters.

Incidents and gun crimes

It is generally not common for licensed gun owners to commit violent crimes with their guns and most of the gun crimes are committed with illegal weapons that are beyond the control of the law. Occasionally crimes with legally owned guns do happen. The famous example is so called "Forest killer" Viktor Kalivoda who during 2005 murdered three people in the wood with his legally owned Glock for no particular reason. He was later captured, found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Among the most recent events (Oct 9th 2008) can be found the incident at Czech politician's Jiří Paroubek party where his acquaintance Bohumír Ďuričko shot after a short quarrel Václav Kočka junior, the son of Prague businessman with his legally carried gun. Ďuričko later claimed he was acting in self defense after Kočka attacked his pregnant girlfriend. According to the eyewitness testimony it seems highly unlikely. In April 2009, Bohumír Ďuričko was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison.

General attitudes to guns and efforts to tighten the law

The gun law in the Czech republic is quite liberal. It is mostly caused by the fact that after the fall of communistic regime people wanted to regain their rights to keep and bear arms and these needs resulted in passing quite a liberal legislation. The law became widely accepted and led to quite massive civilian arming. Especially many businessmen felt the actual need to obtain a firearm because the times shortly after the so called "Velvet Revolution" are known for the rise in organized crime often related to the economic transformation in the 90's.

These days less people feel the need to carry a firearm for protection. General attitude to gun ownership is that there is no point in banning guns because criminals will get guns no matter how tight the law is. Also the fact that Czech Republic has a strong tradition in firearms manufacturing and competition shooting contributes to generally moderate attitude to gun control.

Efforts to tighten the law usually arise after deadly incidents like those described above. Obligatory psychological testing for gun owners is the most common subject of the discussion however has always been rejected. Gun advocates point out that it is not clear what the tests would be like and who would be responsible for the testing and its results. It is also pointed out that it is unlikely that any psychological testing would reveal a potentially dangerous individual because some famous killers were in the past members of the military or the law enforcement and passed very difficult psychological testing successfully.

The law was last tightened in 2008 introducing for example stricter sanctions for carrying gun while drunk. Proposals to introduce psychological testing were not passed.

Other type of weapons

There is currently no regulation on other type of weapons such as knives, pepper sprays, batons or electrical paralyzers/tasers. These weapons can be freely bought and carried (concealed or open) by anybody above 18. The age is required by the Commercial Code.