Prague, July 10 (CTK) – Gun licence tests should become more objective and effective in the Czech Republic under a new directive the cabinet approved on Monday, its spokesman Martin Ayrer said, adding that the directive specifies the conditions of the expertise part of the test.
The number of applicants and tests has been rising in the country in the past years.
At the same time, the number of complaints against the tests, filed by the applicants and the supervising police has been rising as well.
In 2016, applicants took 1,703 expertise tests, compared with 796 in 2012.
Until now, the test rules have been based on several laws, decrees and government directives that partly coincided with each other, which led to problems and complaints.
The complaints mainly challenged the examining officers’ approach in the practical part of the examination, where they assessed the applicant’s performance as insufficient, a document discussed by the government says.
Other complaints challenged the examining officers’ requirements in the area of technical knowledge about the construction of weapons and ammunition.
According to the amended government directive, the rules will be unified all over the country, will be clearer and more effective.
A new provision in the directive deals with the methods applied by the examining officers. The questions and tasks they will require must be comprehensible, unambiguous and not misleading, the directive says.
The gun licence expertise test has two parts to check the applicants’ theoretical knowledge and practical ability to safely use and manipulate arms.
In the 10.5-million Czech Republic, a gun licence was held by 300,307 people at the end of 2016, which was 8,285 more than in late 2015.
A total of 801,532 arms were officially registered with the police at the end of last year.
