page_title: Gun law in the Czech Republic
section_title: General attitudes to guns and efforts to change the law
hierarchical_section_title: Gun law in the Czech Republic / General attitudes to guns and efforts to change the law
context_page_description: Gun laws in the Czech Republic in many respects differ from those in other Member states of the European Union. A gun in the Czech Republic is available to anybody subject to acquiring a shall issue firearms license. Gun licenses may be obtained in a way similar to a driving license – by passing a gun proficiency exam, medical examination and having a clean criminal record. Unlike in most other European countries, the Czech gun legislation also permits a citizen to carry a concealed weapon for self-defense – 248,278 out of 305,452 legal gun owners have a concealed carry permit. The vast majority of Czech gun owners possess their firearms for protection, with hunting and sport shooting being less common.
  Historically, the country was at the forefront of spreading of civilian fireams ownership, as firearms became indispensable tools for the mostly peasant Hussite armies, whose amateur combatants, including women, fended off a series of invasions of professional crusader armies of well armored warriors with cold weapons in the 1420s and 1430s. The English term pistol originated in 15th-century Czech language.
context_section_description: The gun law in the Czech Republic is quite liberal. It is mostly caused by the fact that after the fall of communist regime people wanted to regain their rights to keep and bear arms and these needs resulted in passing quite liberal legislation in 1995, which surpassed the previous restrictive communist enactment. The law became widely accepted and led to quite massive civilian arming. Especially many businessmen felt the actual need to obtain a firearm because the times shortly after the Velvet Revolution are known for the rise in organized crime often related to the economic transformation in the early 1990s.
  The biggest attempt on restricting firearm ownership happened in 1999, Minister of the interior Václav Grulich proposed a new law, compliant with the EU requirements, which would severely restrict gun ownership by requiring the membership in a sports club for sports license and proof of "danger to life" for concealed carry permit and self-defense gun ownership. However, the proposal  sparked opposition in the Chamber of deputies, the main concern being immense corruption potential in the proposed "may issue" doctrine, and the proposal was rejected by all parties in the chamber, except for Social Democrats, the party of Grulich himself. 5 years earlier, a similar motion was proposed by Zdeněk Trojan, a deputy for ČSSD, in a form of amendment to a government proposed firearms act (the one that was enacted in 1995) but found very little support and was rejected.
  Due to falling crime rates, fewer people felt the need to carry a firearm for protection after 2000. This trend however changed in 2015 following the European migrant crisis and November 2015 Paris attacks. Gun advocacy groups argue that there is no point in banning guns because criminals will get guns no matter how tight the law is. At the same time, however, the rules are deemed to be restrictive enough to prevent criminals from easily obtaining firearms, while allowing upstanding citizens to own them for personal protection. For example, in 2010, a Norwegian terrorist, incited by reports of British newspapers describing Prague as "being the most important transit site point for illicit weapons in Europe", found himself unable to obtain any in the country when preparing for the 2011 Norway attacks. Similarly, a Polish terrorist obtained guns illegally in 1200 km distant Belgium, despite living mere 70 km from the Czech border. Also, the fact that Czech Republic has a strong tradition in firearms manufacturing and competition shooting contributes to generally moderate attitude to gun control.
  Obligatory psychological testing for gun owners is a common subject of discussion, but it has always been rejected. Gun advocates point out that the nature of the tests and the parties responsible for them are not clear. It is also pointed out that it is unlikely that any psychological testing would reveal a potentially dangerous individual, because some famous killers in the past were members of the military or the law enforcement and passed very difficult psychological testing successfully.
  The most important changes to the 2002 Firearms Act were the following:
  2004 – inclusion of pyrotechnical survey under the act (new category F license)
  2005 – change of definition of historical firearms (i.e. D Cat not requiring license) from "developed or manufactured prior to 1890" to "manufactured prior to 1890" (i.e. functional replica possession requires license)
  2008
  inclusion of citizens of European Economic Area and Switzerland under the same set rules pertaining to citizens of EU countries
  tighter sanctions for use of firearms (concealed carry, hunting, shooting at ranges) while intoxicated (loss of license)
  2009 – exemption for A category firearms may now be given only A category license holder (e.g. exemptions for fully automatic firearms would newly be given only for firearms collection purposes, not for self-defense), A category firearms may not be conceal carried any more,
  2014
  new licenses issued for 10 years instead of 5
  in case that police has a well founded suspic
caption: Sport shooting is the third most widespread sport in the Czech Republic (after football and ice hockey)[59]
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