Ukrainian law enforcement officials in at least one major city have simplified the gun buying process to allow more civilians to purchase firearms more quickly.
Police in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv told Reuters that they have decreased the time to buy a gun from two to three weeks to two to three days. Concerned Ukrainians have descended on local gun shops to buy rifles and shotguns to protect their homes in and around the city.
“I can see that Russia will not stop, so I must stop them,” said Andrew Muzyka, a web developer waiting with dozens of men outside a gun shop near Lviv’s medical university. “If we can’t save ourselves, nobody can.”
Estimates of the number of guns in private Ukrainian hands range from 2.2 to 6.3 million, according to GunPolicy.org. This puts the median rate of civilian gun ownership at 6.6 firearms per 100 people, far less than the ownership rate in the United States (120 per 100 people).
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There is a gun rights movement in the country. The Ukrainian Gun Owners Association (UGOA), part of an international group of organizations led by the Second Amendment Foundation, works to promote safe gun ownership and relax gun ownership laws.
They’ve faced an uphill battle in recent years. In 2018, an apartment owned by the father of the head of the UGOA was raided by police. In 2017, the chief of the National Police of Ukraine, Serhiy Kniazev, claimed that the common citizens should not possess weapons during wartime.
Firearm ownership is restricted to shotguns and rifles for sporting and hunting purposes. However, on February 23rd, 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a declaration of a state of emergency, the Ukrainian parliament approved a law that gives citizens the right to carry weapons outside their homes for the purpose of self-defense.
SEE ALSO: New Study Claims Rate of Mass Public Shootings Is Higher Globally and Increasing More Rapidly
Those citizens are taking advantage of the new policies to arm up in preparation for war.
Oleh Lekhush told Reuters that the 500 people in his town’s civilian defense force had only about 20 firearms between them. He has no military experience, but he understands that firearms will soon be necessary.
“When the tensions began on the border I started making preparations,” he said. “Unfortunately the only thing I didn’t do was buy a weapon. But I’m hoping I will get it as soon as I can.”
I would NOT dismiss anything Winston asserted. Does anyone here trust Joe Biden? Joe cares more about lining the pockets of his crack head son then he does about all the Ukrainian people or even all of the people of the US. Blinken, or whatever his names, never once tried to negotiate with Putin because the cabal around that fake POTUS wants another regime change. Blinken did go to China after that nation let a wave of death lose on the world and tried to negotiate with those fine folks but they slapped him down. Why are two nations, China and Russia, treated so differently?
The Dems like FDR relished the era of “old uncle Joe Stalin” killing the Ukrainian people by the millions and other Christians in the USSR. Now that there is a national leader Russia that tolerates Christianity and has resisted the globalist agenda the Dems and many other American phonies now pretend that they care about “freedom” and Ukrainian independence. These same clowns were just telling you a month ago that “freedom” was the “whiteness” that we are all supposed to hate.
The same powerful political voices that pretend they care about the Ukrainian people never once protested when beautiful girls from that whole region were being sold into sexual slavery on the streets of Tel Aviv. If the annual billion- dollar boondoggle to the “Holy Land” was contingent on human rights concessions then several generations of innocent girls would have been protected. So now I am supposed to just trust the word of every mass manipulator that has led the US on countless con games over and over and over again? No thanks suckers.
May the Russians find a rifle behind every blade of grass. And when they have their asses handed to them, may all would be piss ant potentates the world over take note.
I believe “Winston” is one of those Russian web bots that spread misinformation to help divide those who don’t follow the Putin doctrine.
How about giving us some links to the videos you mentioned.
Hey NATO, let’s do an emergency session and offer membership to all the countries around Russia?
Winston: May the blessings of a corrupt AutoKrat regime be your reward in Purgatory, for all eternity.
Strange, if something of that scale were to happen here, there wouldn’t be too much of a line at the gun stores; maybe a line at some of our domiciles as our lesser equipped brethren realize they need to borrow a boomstick from their gun-hobby neighbors!!
The resistance of the Ukranians should forever end the argument of the gun ban crowd that an armed populace would be no match for a standing army. History is filled with tales of the Davids taking out the Goliaths; mostly when the Davids are being stripped of their land, culture, etc.
An armed populace is mainly what has kept this American experiment intact for 2.5 Centuries, and is perhaps the only “check” that will keep government overreach in “balance”
You all are actually phony opposition. Ukraine is a failed state run by NWO reset types.
Hey Winny –
Did you happen to see the picture on the F page of the NY Slimes ? That is your kinda paper, so I assumed so. Whatever the political (back) story is or might be is irrelevant when you have atrocities at this level. The only “bottom-line” that matters is that the Ukrainians don’t want to live under Putin’s iron curtain of control. They want to be free and deserve all the help the world can provide. Piss off and find a nice group of libtards to chat with !!
Are you all censoring anyone who posts some bit of truth about what is actually happening in post-2014 US coup Ukraine just as Facebook does?
The Zelensky regime handed out 18,000 weapons in larger cities, and now the gangs are having shootouts, robbing people and executing people who have pro-Russian sympathies. Videos show widespread looting and murders of families. US puppet Zelensky, who refused to organize the evacuation of any civilians, fled to Warsaw.
Where is the Ukrainian military? Little too late to be trying to arm the populist after the Rooskies have already attacked isn’t it? They have had months to plan for this, did they think Poot’n was amassing this attack group just for show? Why didn’t Ukraine join NATO when they had a chance? What’s going on there is tragic and I have nothing but the greatest empathy for all involved but there’s more to this story then we’re being told.
Ukraine has never been, nor will it ever be eligible to join NATO. At least by the rules currently in place. MAYBE the EU – we’ll see. I think most of the world underestimated Putin. Lesson: never try to predict what a crazy dictator is going to do – better to prepare for the worst. Coulda, shoulda, woulda……that was then and this is now. The world has a new reality to deal with, like it or not – it won’t stop with Ukraine.
As I understand it Ukraine had a chance to join NATO in 2010 and their president at that time refused (2010-2014) and up until recently the Ukrainian people did not support joining NATO, just like Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, and others, but yet they want NATO protection.
If all of these non-axis-of-evil countries would join and support NATO that would send a clear message to Poot’n and the Rooskies the world isn’t going to tolerate these atrocities.