Jilemnice, North Bohemia, Feb 26 (CTK) – Czech President Milos Zeman is not against the right to carry arms anymore and he changed his mind on arms possession after the terrorist attack on the Bataclan Theatre, he told journalists at the end of his visit to the Liberec Region on Friday.
Last November, three armed attackers killed 89 people during a concert in the Bataclan Theatre in Paris.
Zeman said if at least one member of the audience in Bataclan had a pistol and was a good shooter, he might have prevented the attackers from killing so many people.
He said a person might not have been let into the Bataclan Theatre with a gun, however.
Zeman previously said it would be too risky if people carried arms, probably except for hunters.
Only a few days after the terrorist attacks in Paris, the European Commission presented a plan for making the EU directive on arms possession stricter. Private persons should not have the right to carry certain types of rifles, according to the EC.
Some Czech politicians criticised the EC proposal. “Terrorists do not apply for a licence to carry arms,” lawmaker Frantisek Laudat (TOP 09) said.
At the end of 2015, Czech authorities registered 292,000 arms holders who owned over 800,000 guns. Czech parliament is now discussing a bill that would shorten the validity of a firearms licence from ten to five years.
