Frauke Petry, the leader of Germany’s nationalist party Alternative fur Deutschland, wants to give Germans the right to own guns in order to protect themselves.
Germany has some of the strictest gun laws in the world, and very few gun related deaths each year. After a man shot nine people with an illegal gun at Munich mall in July, politicians called for even tighter legislation.
Petry, on the other hand, wants to make guns more accessible for the people.
“Every law-abiding citizen should be able to defend themselves, their family and their friends,” Petry said in an interview with Funke Media Group Saturday.
Sales of non-lethal guns have spiked in Germany during 2016, following terror attacks and the mass sexual assault scandal in Cologne on New Year’s Eve. Gun sales reached unprecedented levels at the beginning of the year, and rose threefold in some areas in just a few weeks.
Politicians of other parties criticized Petry’s proposal, and said the state should be in charge of ensuring people’s safety.
“Apparently, Ms. Petry wants the state to surrender and citizens to protect themselves in Wild West fashion,” Thomas Strobl, the deputy party chief of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union told Funke Media Group Sunday. “It’s, however, the state that has to ensure the security of its citizens.”
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