Posted on 03/15/2009 5:28:33 AM PDT by GonzoII
After the first victim of Tim Kretschmer's school massacre was buried on Saturday, Angela Merkel suggested surprise visits to gun owners to see if they are storing their weapons properly.
The German Chancellor has avoided making rash demands or suggestions for new laws following the massacre in Winnenden, but spoke on Deutschlandfunk radio on Sunday calling for more attention to be given to young people.
“We must do everything to see that children do not get weapons, and certainly that they are not encouraged to violence. We have to pay attention to all young people. That goes for parents, and it goes for teachers,” she said.
She added that surprise visits should be considered from authorities to gun owners to check they have their firearms locked away as prescribed by the law.
(Excerpt) Read more at thelocal.de ...
Someone’s gonna get shot checking.
Mooted?
Geez....
Surprise visits = Raids by jack booted thugs
Very true, at least in a good part the U.S.A..
Germany sounds like a happy hunting ground for burglars and home invaders. Maybe if we spread the word around some of ours will move over there where they can ply their trade without fear of the occupant perforating their hides with lead.
Or they could just move to Chicago, Washington D.C., or NYC and enjoy the same advantage. In Germany you can have a gun but the authorities make you lock it up. It's just the reverse in big US cities, if you have a gun the authorities lock you up.
To explain how German gun storage laws work...its kinda simple. You take a gun safety class (ensuring you actually handle a gun by the end) and a first aid class (so you can tend to problems if an accident occurs), then you get your certificate to own weapons. Once you buy a weapon, it must be stored properly.
So in your house, there will be a gun cabinet or gun room. There will be a heavy-duty container or door involved. It has to pass the spec’s that the government requires. The lock? Its a specialized lock with ONE key. The key is a unique-type key where duplication is practically impossible (your normal locksmith won’t be capable of replacing the key). The key will be on your person at all times...NOT in the kitchen drawer, or the desk, or on the nightstand.
If the cops come to your house and ask to see the weapons...they’ll watch your next move. If the key was on your person...no problems. If you go to kitchen drawer...the cops can confiscate your weapons until you meet with the local judge and admit you were stupid. Then you settle with a minor fine and get the weapons back. How many inspections will a guy experience in forty years? Most German gun owners will smile and say one.
Access to the gun storage by other members of the family? No. Unless they take the same class and get their certificate...they don’t get access or a key.
If you want to keep a pistol out for protection...fine, but its got to be within your reach and not stored under the bed or in a kitchen drawer.
Most Americans will disagree on this amount of law. And they will eagerly point out that there have been a dozen-odd circumstances over the past five years where kids got their hands onto the weapons anyway (in this recent case, dad kept 14 weapons locked properly, and kept one pistol in the bedroom...which is the gun that the kid took).
The curious thing is that you don’t have drunken bouts where a wife shoots a husband, or some neighbor gets upset and blasts some kid.
My final observation....being from Bama originally...there are lots of extra rules involved here and most people would be terribly upset if they were enacted in the US. But I can remember various kids...as young as six...knowing precisely where Grandpa kept his rifle or pistol, and they had full access to it.
Let me know how you like the XD, if you don’t mind. Shoot me a PM if ya want. I’m looking at getting one myself.
Will do.
“But I can remember various kids...as young as six...knowing precisely where Grandpa kept his rifle or pistol, and they had full access to it.”
Yeah, so can I. But back in our day kids had respect for their elders and had respect for firearms, because they had been taught about firearms by their elders.
I am 58, and I remember when I was a kid virtually every household had at least one gun (remember, our fathers were all WWII veterans, and we all looked up to them, no matter whose father it was; and they all passed on their respect for firearms to the kids). It’s odd, that with all those kids (baby-boomers) and all those guns, NOT ONE of us ever thought about taking a gun to school to threaten or shoot anyone; it’s just something that never even entered our minds.
Kids today, in general, have zero respect for their elders, and they have zero experience with firearms (by experience I don’t just mean knowing how to pull a trigger: I mean knowing what a gun is, what it can do, and when and where are the proper times and places to use it).
It’s all about education and respect and knowing right from wrong. All three of those elements are lacking in a large number of American households (hence the epidemic of idiocy that runs through many of our communities).
All night long.
My grandad kept a loaded 12 ga behind the back door. It was there for as long as I can remember. He said it was loaded so we did not touch it.
He had some 27 grand kids, not one of them was injured by "the gun".
I was in my teens the first time I touched it and then only because I had his permission to take it hunting.
That can be really awkward when the Arapaho and Apache raiders and minority-American home-invaders come calling, and your first notification is the front door coming off its hinges.
Sometimes you just need the family piece(s) readily available for anybody in the family. Remember the supply clerk at Pearl Harbor who demanded a proper chit before handing over a weapon? He got run over -- and should have been.
The 2’nd amendment is a bulwark against tyranny and the occasional person or persons who get whacked in family disputes or some sort of lunatic gun rage are viewed by Americans simply as a price worth paying. The alternative is having a Hitler, Stalin, or Tojo using state powers to kill millions of people. Germany still has no real protection from that possibility as we do.
A reawakening of Naziism is taking place in Austria with a surprising number of people who are following some old Nazi who proudly wears his old uniform. Whatever one calls this new/old movement, it is very real and is based on racism, whites vs Jews and blacks (their words, not mine). They are really fighting against the huge number of Muslims in Europe and seeing that no more assaults on their national identity go unchallenged. I don’t know how powerful these groups are but they are growing. One of their observations is that the Jews on Wall Street have caused this financial crises, they completely neglect to say the Democrats have contributed to this mess.
I don't know about their size as regards Germany, in any case, the neo-Nazis apparently are getting more violent there:
Attack sparks fear of rising neo-Nazi violence
My Dad and both Grand-dads were teaching me to shoot, hunt, and handle guns safely when I was seven, and what I was taught has stuck with me through the last 64 years. I have never had a gun accident, and neither of my now grown kids or my still growing grand-kids has ever taken a gun out of my unlocked storage cabinet or their parent's without permission or has had an accident with a gun. If need be I would trust my 12 YO grand-daughter to safely load and fire any gun in my house all by herself and not worry about her having an accident.
We need responsible, safety-minded adult gun owners who will teach kids the dangers of NOT handling guns safely and train them TO handle guns safely with stiff penalties for disobeying the rules, not nanny-state gun storage laws.
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