70,000 Romanians possess firearm permits
Around 70,000 individuals in Romania possess firearm permits, and the Police have issued an average of nearly 5,800 permits per year over the past 10 years, according to official records.
There is no statistical data regarding the age of the individuals to whom the firearm permits were issued, according to a response from the General Police Inspectorate to G4Media. The highest number of permits (8,629) issued was in 2013.
To be issued a permit in Romania, one has to be at least 18 years old, have the required legal status, have no prior convictions or criminal charges, be psychologically and medically fit to use guns and complete a theoretical and practical training course. Applicants also must not have had their gun permit revoked in the past 2 years and must not have had their weapon lost or stolen in the last 5 years.
Albeit rare, tragedies having at the center the use of guns have also occurred in Romania. One of the bloodiest shootings took place in 2012 at a hair salon in the Perla area of Bucharest. Eight people were shot, and two of them died. The attacker was an ambulance driver and a member of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who legally possessed a firearm, and had a complicated relationship with his wife, one of the deceased individuals.
Accidental deaths involving firearms tend to occur more frequently. This year, just before Easter, a 33-year-old man was accidentally shot and killed in a village in Suceava county when a bullet ricocheted off a structure he was leaning against while an acquaintance was attempting to sacrifice a bull. Earlier this year, in Timiș county, a 56-year-old man was fatally shot, apparently accidentally, during an unauthorized hunting party.
Shortly after the massacre in Belgrade, a first-grade student at a school in Constanța was found with a non-lethal airsoft sniper rifle that he had taken from his father's home and managed to bring into the school as there was no security guard present. The parents were taken in for questioning.
While firearm attacks in Europe are still rare enough to shock when they occur, unfortunately, in the United States, the phenomenon seems to be out of control and is shocking due to the increasingly young age of the perpetrators, whether the incidents are accidental or not.
(Photo source: Daveallenphoto | Dreamstime.com)
