The last few years, amidst Europe’s ongoing terrorist attacks and Muslim-influx crisis, European gun sales have surged. Article from January 2016:
Gun sales have jumped 350 per cent in Austria amid ‘unease’ over increasing numbers of migrants following the Paris terror attacks…
The final months of 2015 showed increases in gun permit applications, while dealers reported huge demand for self defence weapons such as tasers, pepper spray and blank firing-guns.
It comes just months after shotguns were reported to have sold out across the country as residents became increasingly paranoid about refugee numbers.
Applications for gun permits have gone up significantly in Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic. In places with stricter gun laws, such as Germany, non-lethal guns and pepper spray have become alternatives.
“There’s no official explanation for the rise, but in general we see a connection to Europe’s terrorist attacks,” Hanspeter Kruesi, a police spokesman in the Swiss canton of St. Gallen, told Reuters.
Czech Republic’s President saw the light:
President Milos Zeman used to advocate gun control, but called for easier access to guns in July [2016] following the terror attack in Nice.
“Earlier I spoke against possession of large amounts of weapons [in the hands of the people],” Zeman said in a July interview with newspaper Blesk. “After those attacks, I do not think so any more.”
And last week, the Czech Republic began to create their own version of our 2nd Amendment:
Czech lawmakers have passed legislation in the lower parliament that would see the right to bear firearms enshrined in the country’s constitution…
The legislation was passed with 139 deputies agreeing to the amendment to the constitution with only nine deputies voting against. The amendment will now be considered by the Czech Senate where it will require a supermajority of three-fifths…
…the Czech legislation reads: “Citizens of the Czech Republic have the right to acquire, retain and bear arms and ammunition.”
It’s rare to have that right in a country’s Constitution. Hopefully, it’s about to become less rare.
Unfortunately, Germany is busy turning its guns against its own People’s free speech:
German lawmakers approved a bill on Friday aimed at cracking down on hate speech on social networks…
Among other things, it would fine social networking sites up to 50 million euros ($56 million) if they persistently fail to remove illegal content within a week, including defamatory “fake news.”
“Freedom of speech ends where the criminal law begins,” said Justice Minister Heiko Maas, who was the driving force behind the bill…
Social networks also have to publish a report every six months detailing how many complaints they received and how they dealt with them.
This is fascism: the merger of Business and State, in which the State commandeers Business to achieve the State’s aims – such as, in this case, the enforcement of political purity and consensus. Looks like Mark Zuckerberg has no problem with it.
Are the Germans going to target ordinary citizens’ protests against Germany’s insane Muslim refugee policy? Sadly, yes:
By “right wing extremist” what German authorities really mean is anyone who questions the immigration policies of the Europe, or thinks differently than the general population.
The article cites the relevant sections of Germany’s criminal speech code – that sound good on paper, except they are so subjective that the authorities can, will and do use them to punish any speech they don’t like.
I’m not sure – my German is quite rusty – but I think that in this clip, Germany’s Vice Chancellor is saying that Muslim refugees are more German than the Germans who would object to their presence, and who should therefore be locked up.
‘looks like mark zukerberg has no problem with it” the little commie probably wrote the law.
who gets to decide what is hate speech?
The Czech president seems to be willing to change his opinion in light of new evidence. As opposed to our politicians and journalists, who interpret evidence to conform to their preconceptions.
The EU’s failure to deal with terrorism will provoke widespread vigilantism. Germany, in particular, is probably on the brink of anarchy. Which might be an improvement. It is better to have no government at all than to have a government that refuses to take action against terrorism, then prosecutes its own citizens for criticizing the terrorists’ ideology.
Part of the whole point of a government is that the government promises to assume the duty of protection and defense from the populace in order to wield it on behalf of all people. When the government fails to do so, we shouldn’t be surprise people start reassuming that duty.