Articles on recent events in Germany and Austria have included references to the formation of vigilante groups, which are prepared to do the job the police won’t do with respect to culturally enriched crime. Other reports say that Germans and Austrians are buying guns in record numbers, and that some dealers have exhausted their stocks and are putting potential customers on a waiting list.
The following account of Austrian weapons laws was left by a commenter named Michael. It contains useful information on the firearms situation in Austria, and is worth reproducing here in its entirety. I’ve edited the text for punctuation, spelling, and syntactic clarity:
I’m an Austrian citizen and the current weapons law is the following:
Weapons are categorized in categories A-D.
A: Weapons for war. This category mainly includes fully automatic guns. Totally forbidden for people [civilians]. B: Semi-automatic rifles and pistols. You need a weapon owner’s card (Waffenbesitzkarte) or a weapon pass (Waffenpass). The latter allows the carrying of the weapon with you, whereas the first one only allows purchasing and transport to a shooting range. C+D: Single-shot rifles. Can be bought freely if you’re 18+.
All weapons are registered in a central weapons registry (zentralles Waffenregister).
I have a Waffenbesitzkarte, so I can buy up to two semi-automatic guns currently (can be extended to up to nine, but I have to wait for five years to extend by two slots).
Requirements for this card:
- 18+
- No criminal actions in your past
- Police visit you
- Psychological test (€238)
- Shooting course (€50)
- The costs for the card itself (€77)
Weapons of category B have to be stored in a locked weapon box, and you get visits from the police…
Currently weapon sales as well as registrations for the cards mentioned above are skyrocketing in Austria (four times the number of registrations). I have no numbers for weapons sales, but currently for cat C+B weapons you have to wait two months and about a week for a Glock (and these guns are manufactured in this country).
People are nervous and refugee thematics are all over the place….
I hope I have shed some light.
Greetings,
Michael
From what I can figure the price of the permit is 365. Euros. That’s 398. Dollars. That would probably let out a lot of low-income people.
They’re the ones that need it most as they live in poorer areas where most immegrents live.
Well, the elites wanted a disarmed Europe. Now they effectively have one.
Just as in New York, when they taxed cigs to make the price of a single pack close to $11.00 (US) the market flooded with black market cigs bought from out-of-state. There is no place in NYC where you can’t find black-market cigs now.
The same will be true of guns in Europe. Vigilante groups will grow and prosper and they will have guns.
The unalterable law of supply and demand will take the day. The elites will see their version of reality comes hard against actual facts and arithmetic.
Quote from a poster in Great Britain:
“When seconds matter, the police are just minutes away”.
That’s an ironic phrase used around the S.F. Bay Area a lot, too….
In Detroit thay can take as long as a half-an-hour to respond to an emergency call. [From a PBS documentary.]
Our cops really can be there in a matter of minutes. To help if you have a cat stuck up a tree or a domestic dispute etc.
If however there is a Mumbai style roaming terrorist attack, waiting for an armed response team means we will will suffer carnage and deaths.
Hardly any armed cops. The general population cannot even carry anything bigger than a penknife, never mind a firearm.
Absolutely correct, Bill C. Eastern Europe will keep the West well-supplied. I miss the old Saturday Night Special. Perhaps those days are back, except on another continent.
And if a million Austrians quietly refused to go this rigmarole to defend themselves?
It’s odd how being law abiding is a distinct disadvantage when dealing with Islam.
Can someone please tell me how safe it is to walk the streets of Vienna nowadays?
Preferably someone currently living there.
I am supposed to visit the city in a couple of months and I need to know what to expect.
Thanks in advance.
Its currently quite save for tourists if you stay in the 1st district, but dont come to districts 2, 10, 11, 15 or 12. If you come in a couple of months then I have no idea how save it will be then, because the moslems are getting more and more every day.
Thank you, I shall take this into consideration.
I have a senior citizen relative who lives in what you might call an ‘ivory tower’ in a part of Vienna that might be termed a sleepy post-imperial village, where events between 1914 and, say, 1958 are rarely, if ever, mentioned and anything since 1958 completely ignored.
Talked to him a few weeks ago and was shocked to hear him use language I would have never expected to ever hear out of the mouth of this highly authority-trusting, correct and conciliatory man.
Words like ‘fear’, ‘sharia’, concerns over someone who steals an apple at the Naschmarkt (outdoor market in districts 5/6) getting their hand chopped off.
I felt like I was talking to a stranger in some apocalyptic, dystopian sci-fi movie.
District 2 has been shady for at least 100 years (prostitutes, drugs, rapes, etc.), districts 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 20, 21 & 22 are (or used to be….) the industrial working-class ‘underbelly’ of Vienna, I was aware that 10 and 16 had been turned into kebab, guess they’ve been joined by a few more.
It takes training and a mental shift to carry a gun for self-defence. Key is (a) recognising threats (b) being psychologically prepared to respond (c) what to do if a potential attacker gets too close. I would say that (c) is the most difficult for a lone citizen; the logic of the gun dictates that you must shoot before an attacker gets too close (very difficult on a crowded train). Frankly, if you carry a gun you are already in combat mode and you need to operate in a group. Black street gangs in the UK are known to use the “outrider” technique on bicycles: one in the middle carries a gun and he has outriders (maybe with knives) to create a buffer.
Keeping a gun in your home is less problematic as regards the decision to shoot but possibly more problematic if regs require that your gun must be locked up when not in use.
Based on those firearm regulations I would assume Austrians are fairly lightly armed. Mostly hunting rifles. To look for Europeans with real firepower, it’s really the Swiss with an assault rifle in every home’s closet.
I lived in Austria for 23 years and never met 1 single person who owned any type of firearm, except police, of course.
In Germany it is even worse.
But Claudia Fatima Roth has according to other sources not only a Permit to own a gun, NO, she even has a concealed carry licence.
As a normal citizen you cannot get one, period. Only politicians have them.
All are equal before the law and some more.
Now I’m wondering how hard would it be to relocate to Europe and set up shop as a gun maker. Smooth bore pistols (not revolvers) and Sten guns are incredibly easy to manufacture. No lathe or milling machine required. Wouldn’t be the best in the world. However… Is gun… Is shoot… Would do even better if someone could get their hands on a tool to cut rifling.
You would find yourself restricted by more laws you ever thought possible could even exist in a thousand libraries.
Ever since the French Revolution, pretty much all European governments have been deathly afraid of something like that happening in their country and have done a VERY thorough job of making sure their citizens cannot legally obtain anything that might be considered a serious weapon.
Countries that are well armed are the ones that have had a frontiere to push against. Where natives had to be ‘pacified’, Such as: US. South Africa, Brazil, Russia-to a degree. They have a gun mentality.
Europe and south Asia have been settled fro thousands of years. They never developed a feel for self defense. I don’t think most Europeans even WANT to own a gun; not the ones I’ve met.
Europeans were so chronically violent and aggressive toward one another that the Treaty of Westphalia was devised in the attempt to tamp it down. 1648 wasn’t “thousands of years ago”.
South Asia includes India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Hardly a land of peace, especially given the large and aggressive Muslim populations. Pakistan succeeded in developing nuclear weapons. India is dragged down by its warring factions; a miracle there are any non-Muslims left. China is allying wiht Pakistan to cut off any Indian resurgence.As for Afghanistan – I pity those communities (most especially out West in the US) where Afghanis have been “resettled”.
I wasn’t think of it from that angle. I was picturing a docile peasent population under a knight or lord of some sort. Peasentry under a professional warrior class.