Prague, Aug 1 (CTK) – Slovak-made alarm (expansive) guns pose a serious threat to Europe in connection with terrorist attacks since they are often made from regular live-ammunition guns and can be easily activated again, according to experts, daily Pravo writes yesterday.
Moreover, until last year, the sale of such guns in Slovakia was not subject to any regulation and inspection, ballistic expert Jiri Suchanek, from Prague police, told Pravo.
From 2011 to 2015, any adult over 18 could buy an alarm sub-machine gun on Slovak websites, for instance, and then modify it to a normal gun, he added.
The respective legislation was tightened in Slovakia only after the terrorist attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in Paris in January 2015 the perpetrators of which used modified guns from Slovakia, Pravo says.
Since July 2015, the Slovak police have registered the owners of alarm guns and a special permit must be issued for their possible export, it adds.
Nevertheless, alarm guns can still be changed into fully functioning firearms easily.
Thousands of such arms might be elsewhere in Europe, Suchanek told Pravo.
Expansive guns must have a functioning and movable mechanism to be able to use alarm cartridges, so only their barrel can be modify. It can be quickly replaced to activate the gun again, Pravo says.
It writes that in the neighbouring Czech Republic, the modification of live-ammunition guns into alarm ones has long been banned. Alarm (expansive) guns can only be produced directly as such.
Slovak authorities have admitted that the respective legislation was too liberal in the past years. At present, the firms modifying normal guns to expansive models must hold a licence at least.
Pravo writes that this is a general European problem.
This is why the Czech police started cooperating with Europol. Last year, they launched a joint sting seizing expansive sub-machine guns from Slovakia.
The whole system of deactivating firearms is much stricter in the Czech Republic than in Slovakia.
Czech arms are so thoroughly deactivated that it is easier to make a new gun than to modify the old one that was officially deactivated once, Roman Vana, head of the Chamber of Deputies security committee, told Pravo.
“In 20 years, I have not met with a crime committed by a weapon that was once deactivated and them made functioning again,” court Czech expert Jiri Hanak told Pravo.
However, Pravo reported recently that firearms have not been deactivated in the Czech Republic in the past four months at all due to a European Commission directive that is not technically feasible in practice.
hol/t
