Sales of less-than-lethal weapons and blank-firing pistols surge in Germany in response to violent attacks. (Photo: Die Welt)
In Germany, it’s difficult to get a gun. Even non-functioning blank-firing replicas and starter pistols are regulated, along with pepper spray and other less-than-lethal weapons. But they are easier to get. And Germans are getting them in numbers.
Sales of blank-firing pistols and other less-than-lethal weapon sales have spiked over the past year, along with the permits to carry and use them in public. Last year only 270,000 permits had been issued. So far this year the number soared to just over 402,000 (original German article).
Proper gun ownership in Germany, like in many parts of Europe, is highly regulated. In addition to a background check, Germans have to attend safety classes, pass a mental health exam and also qualify with their firearms. The process is involved, costs thousands of euros and takes about a year to complete. Purchasing a firearm for self-defense is not permitted.
But purchasing a less-than-lethal weapon for everyday carry is pretty straightforward. The buyers only need proof that they’re of age and there is no background check.
Germans are getting these weapons for a pretty obvious reason: they want them for protection. As the best immediate option for self-defense — irritant spray and blank-firing “alarm” guns — these less-than-lethal weapons are hot sellers. Buyers are encouraged to get professional advice for safe handling of less-than-lethal weapons as they can be deadly if misused. This is especially true for blank-firing guns.
Along with a rise in sexual assaults across Germany, prominent shootings have spurred sales of less-than-lethal weapons. Many Germans believe that the migrant rape crisis is being marginalized and downplayed by government authorities and ignored by police. It stands to reason that some of these people feel like they can only trust themselves for protection.
During the recent mall shooting in Munich, one man hurled insults and bottles from his balcony at the shooter waiting for police to respond. “If I had a gun I would have shot him I’d have shot him in the head,” said Thomas “the Balcony Man” Salbey to the Daily Mail.
Naturally. the rise in less-than-lethal weapons ownership is upsetting to some. German politicians argue that people will modify blank-firing guns to shoot standard cartridges, adding to the pool of illegal guns in the country. The European Union recently passed sweeping restrictions on their already strict international gun control laws.
See Also: How Europe Turned Hunting into a ‘White Collar’ Sport
For many Americans, the idea of adding gun control laws to fight terrorism and sex assault is backwards. In the U.S. people are turning to concealed-carry for personal protection. At the same time, violent crime and murder rates have dropped nationwide.
According to the must-read “Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States: 2016” report, violence has dropped by 18 percent and murders by 16. Importantly, the drop in crime can be correlated with the increase in concealed-carry rates.
The report goes on to identify people with concealed-carry permits as some of the most law-abiding individuals in the country. In some parts of the country, concealed-carriers are convicted for crimes at one-sixth the rate as police officers.
It will take some time for Germany and the rest of Europe to come around to the same conclusion. An armed citizenry is not just safer from crime, it’s safer from terrorism. Former Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble shocked international leaders when he said the best way to fight terrorism is to have an armed populace.
“What I’m saying is it makes police around the world question their views on gun control,” said Noble. “It makes citizens question their views on gun control. You have to ask yourself, ‘Is an armed citizenry more necessary now than it was in the past with an evolving threat of terrorism?’ This is something that has to be discussed.”
The Bastille Day attack in Nice, France sadly proved that a terrorist does not need guns to commit large-scale carnage. A disarmed country is no safer and if anything, just a softer target.
I am quite surprised that Angela Merkel would allow the “rag-heads” into Germany! WHY? There is really no good reason. My wife, family, and I have enjoyed visiting Germany for approximately 35 years for vacations, Oktoberfest and other occasions, and try to go at least once or twice a year. Sadly, NO MORE! I’m not going to subject my family and myself to such heathens as the “rag-heads” have become. They care about NOTHING, not even there own lives. They have been this way for centuries, and now have increasing numbers to attempt to conquer peace-loving countries such as Germany, and of course the USA, fostered by dumBO. Why, I ask Chancellor Merkel, WHY? I would ask the same of dumBO, but he doesn’t have the common sense to really know what he’s doing.
Hello Jim, may I give you a few suggestions why that crazy maniac allows every scum to come into my country? These are theories I have gathered so far when I was at the Pegida Berlin demonstrations but they are likely true from what we can see every day.
At first Germany, as I have mentioned here already, has no real democracy. In fact, Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler were both very interested about Islam and its dictatorship style religion that orders you to go to battle for them, if you are not sick. I know there is a Quran verse about this command but I’m not sure in which Surah it was. Anyway, Himmler said it once that Islam would be the perfect tool for having people following you without any doubt and they even founded a Waffen-SS division in Croatia that was filled and lead by Muslims, known as the Handschar Division. They had an Arabian sword as their symbol.
The people in Germany are tired of the leftist “democracy” that has been going on for too long already. They know we, the German people, have enough of Merkel, Gauck and the whole parliament in general. Only the Chrystal Meth smoking people (like the members of the Antifa which I call Angela Merkel’s Waffen-SS) are still pro-government. Merkel and the others want to create a total dictatorship and they use Islam as a tool for their own goals. With the help of fear, they can create a EU-wide dictatorship. That is why the EU has been founded. In fact, they blame the Soviet Union and the GDR in our media for anything that happened from 1945 to 1989, yet they try to build the same style of central government that will be led by excessive force only. Freedom, peace and happiness? Not in Europe.
Angela Merkel is in fact nothing more than a muppet. Most people told me that she is in fact a muppet of your American government and the tool of president Obama. I don’t know if this is really true but she is a muppet of someone indeed. Someone that fears the people of Europe that know their rights and demand their freedom. Two things that are not known in Saudi-Arabia, Syria, Turkey or any other Muslim country you can come across. Politicians fear their people because without the support of their people they can forget their power. So they want new people that have a religion that tells them to do anything their people in power say. And so they would love to have Muslim people only. But Merkel and the others are still not able to see that these Muslims don’t listen to them because Merkel and the other German politicians are not Muslims either. They are too blind to see that the Muslims just see them as tools themselves and will kill them all as soon as they are strong enough in number to get their hands on political power themselves.
The problem is also that since the fall of the 3rd Reich leftist propaganda has become out of hand and is ruling us and our media since the founding of the BRD. The BRD is in fact not even a sovereign state. President Obama himself has said this at the Ramstein Airbase in 2009: “Germany is an occupied country and will always be.” Yes Jim, this is what he actually said! We were never free since 8th May 1945. For decades’ people have been filled up with leftist propaganda. Anyone that tries to think free is a Nazi in our media. That is the fact. And that is why any patriotic movement like Pegida is so badly hunted down by our media and many people that are like mindless zombies and that follow anything the government says. As I wrote before, it is 3rd Reich 2.0, just this time from the leftist. They hate pride in your nation, they hate any nation in the world and they want to destroy and kill us all with a leftist Islamic government.
I do believe that the German people and especially our politicians might wake up if it is all too late. We are the ones that go to work, always living in fear of getting assaulted, raped, killed whatever by these bastards, pay taxes and these people they let in, they do nothing! They will never do nothing. They just come in here because they get money, food and shelter for just coming here and all this for free! And they even receive it if they become criminal! But may God be with you if you, a German, would do the same thing. The harshest treatment you can expect for you by committing the same stuff these bastards do!
These are just a few points now; I could write more but I am lacking the time right now. But I hope these points might help you to understand some of the insanity that goes on in Germany. To me personally it is now about life and death. Either I get the Hell out of here one day or I just have to kill myself when the day comes where it is finally all too late. To live in their world is not an option to me.
Weapons can be made from many items.I am American but I went to Russia a few years ago and they thought my desire to be armed was odd.they said “we don’t have guns in russia” I told them my true weapon was not my beloved 45acp glockenspiel but my self educated mind.even in Russia you can arm yourself with a improvised weapon and upgrade by killing a armed enemy.
Don’t kill yourself without first getting as many of your enemies as you can
Christian, it is a very sad and dangerous situation in Germany. Sad because I was born in Germany to German parents. Though my mother and I left Germany for America when I was very young, I still have family in Germany – 2 brothers, one with 3 young children. I worry about them so much! When my bother and I briefly spoke about the “refugees,” he said “We will get used to it.” I was so shocked I could barely muster a “you shouldn’t have to!” I suspect many Germans are in denial like this, just like many Americans. It must be terrifying (the choice of this word is no accident) to think about what could happen and your having no legal way to really defend yourself. I told him to check into a German community in Chile. I’ve seen pictures of the landscape and their homes, which are very alpine-looking. There must be a place for him there as a brilliant businessman and with his beautiful family. And maybe for you, too. I do hope you can get out! Thank you for your brave and honest post and I wish you all the best.
Hello Gabriele,
I did really enjoy your loving post, as well as the posts of the other people in this topic. And yours touched me very much, especially your story about your two brothers. They really seem to have given up already and you are right, they shouldn’t. How could we get used to our women being raped just because they don’t wear a scarf? How could we get used to our children being horribly mobbed and threated in schools where German kids are already a minority, like in Berlin-Neukölln? I could not get used to it and I have to thank God that I was single all my life so far (I’m turning 27 this month) so that I do not have to fear for my children and my girlfriend and later wife I would like to have. I just want to have a very normal life in peace, with a decent job and a nice family but the government wants to destroy this normal dream. I am not asking for much, yet our government hates its own people so much that some of us already ask ourselves when new concentration camps will be built so that they will finally get rid of us, the German people this time.
Gabriele, I do really hope that one day I can get out of here. My English is very well and I am also learning Chinese at a beginner level, as I do believe that this language will be more and more important in world business and one time my language skills will help me to get out of here. My faith is strong and this is so far all I have. And I do believe that you suspect the German people right. The biggest Pegida Berlin demonstrations, that happened in the beginning of 2015, gathered around 300-400 people in a 3.5 million people city. I always felt good to be with some intelligent people together, yet it was sad to see that so less people care about the problems that we have, until the day a refugee camp is close to their homes themselves or their families are the ones that get assaulted. I once read that never in German history the German people killed one of their own leaders, not like the French or Italians. The Germans were always an easy nation to be controlled by some nutjobs and they are easy to be filled with false propaganda. I don’t know what is causing this problem but luckily a few people like me are not like that. And we do deserve a better future, for us and for our children. Democracy is not survival of the fittest or shutting up the political minorities. Germany was never able to create a real democracy and I doubt if this will ever be possible.
Thank you again for telling me your story. As to anyone else here, I am also wishing you all the best even to your brothers and their families. Thank you Gabriele!
Christian, it is a very sad and dangerous situation in Germany. Sad because I was born in Germany to German parents. Though my mother and I left Germany for America when I was very young, I still have family in Germany – 2 brothers, one with 3 young children. I worry about them so much! When my bother and I briefly spoke about the “refugees,” he said “We will get used to it.” I was so shocked I could barely muster a “you shouldn’t have to!” I suspect many Germans are in denial like this, just like many Americans. It must be terrifying (the choice of this word is no accident) to think about what could happen and your having no legal way to really defend yourself. I told him to check into a German community in Chile. I’ve seen pictures of the landscape and their homes, which are very alpine-looking. There must be a place for him there as a brilliant businessman and with his beautiful family. And maybe for you, too. I do hope you can get out! Thank you for your brave and honest post and I wish you all the best.
Adolf tried to show them the way.
Not sure I would want to be shot by a bad guy or the police at a terrorist event cuz I had a starter pistol.
“German politicians argue that people will modify blank-firing guns to shoot standard cartridges, adding to the pool of illegal guns in the country. ”
Sure, outlaws would do illegal conversion but not the law abiding citizens. Even without the blank-firing gun, outlaw simply purchase real guns on black market, which are easily available in eastern Europe.
What you describe in Germany is horrific to me. You Country has been infested with the flushed cesspool of other countries. I can only think if I was a German I would probably move out of that country. Our Country is on the borderline of letting in the same Scum. We need a like minded President like Trump to prevent this from happening. I fear for our country should the Criminal Mrs Bill Clinton become our next president.
On a side-note, I shutter to think that Germans are buying blank firing guns. Firing a blank gun here in the US is asking, no begging to be shot by others, but more likely the Police!
Hello Cyrus,
I also would never rely on a blank-firing pistol but if this is all that you can buy, it is at least better than nothing. My knifes did cost me a pretty penny but I hope they are worth the price if I shall ever have to use them (I hope I never have to). And although I am kind of a fighter nature by heart (not really by physical strength) I have to admit that if someone would offer me a job somewhere in a foreign country, I would be out of here as soon as possible. I admit that on another blog entry (Mesa Tactical leaving California) I wrote that I wonder why all the good Americans leave states and give them in to the democrats but in Germany the situation is different. It is so out of control already that either we will all be a Kalifate soon (with all its bloody consequences) or civil war breaks out and in the end this country will look like 1945 again.
I so dearly hope that at least your country will soon have a better future and that is why I am following the news here. I wish you good luck!
According to HITLER-y, it’s a vast right wing conspiracy, and nothing to worry about even as the religion of peace shouts “ALLAUH AKBAR” before killing as many defenseless people as they can.
As many of you readers surely know already, I am a German myself and I live in Berlin. And this article is just excellent because it writes the truth, just as all the others at gunsamerica do too!
I love especially this part: “Along with a rise in sexual assaults across Germany, prominent shootings have spurred sales of less-than-lethal weapons. Many Germans believe that the migrant rape crisis is being marginalized and downplayed by government authorities and ignored by police. It stands to reason that some of these people feel like they can only trust themselves for protection.”
It couldn’t have been written better and I also enjoyed the link inside it to the main article. Thanks Merkel for killing us all. It is true: As soon as you just raise a small finger against migration crimes you are a Nazi, racist, right-wing populist, bigot, racist and you are one of the people living in “dark Germany” as this presidential failure Joachim Gauck has stated once. If you are a left-radical that wants to destroy Germany (they hate Germany besides the fact that they are workless scum that gets social security from the same country they hate so much, very intelligent isn’t it?) you can throw stones, glass bottles and whatever you got on demonstrants and people in general but may God be with you if you are at a right-wing demonstration and try this yourself as well! The cops receive orders from the government to make demonstrations of the right-wing as hard as possible. And I was in many of them so I can assure you everything I’ve just written.
If any of you guys can understand German and you want more horrific news from Germany like this, you can check http://www.pi-news.net. Germans more and more continue to speak out loud but our lying press is extremist left-oriented and therefore controls most of the brains in the German mainstream, so many people are still happy of seeing their own death coming in. And even a good right-wing party like the AFD is in their eyes nothing more than a Nazi party. I remember being at the first Pegida Berlin demonstrations in January 2015 and the German governmental TV from Berlin (Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg) done an extreme ugly propaganda against me and all the other people. Anti-democrats and Nazis were so far the most non-threatening words they threw at us. But I was there for more than over 30 Bärgida (Pegida Berlin) demonstrations, until they have split up from the main Pegida movement, which I do not support and therefore left, and I can assure you there were no Nazis at all. There was even a man called Sam, an American Jew, that marched with us and even done speeches in front of everyone! And he was openly wearing his Jewish hat all the time (Kippa or how they call it)! Nothing you could see at a Nazi gathering. But for the German media we were all Nazis and nobody wanted to listen to what we had to say. 3rd Reich 2.0.
I also have less-than-lethal stuff with myself, wherever I go. But I’m only talking about Pepper spray. I had a stun gun years ago but it was badly made and broke apart and since 2011 we cannot buy non-checked stun guns anymore and these new checked ones are just useless because they lack any kind of power. So I do rely on lethal combat knifes mostly. You can buy them freely in the internet, you are just not allowed to carry them around, not even concealed, but I give a damn. During summer I have them in my backpack, as there is no other way to carry them concealed around, but during winter I have a good jacket that got pockets inside where I can place these beasts into. And I am obviously ready to use them if I ever shall see someone being harmed by others or if I am the one getting attacked. Same goes for the police baton I’ve bought years ago. It’s funny: People like me were single all their life and Merkel allows so many bastards to come in here and they just take what they can grab, mainly our women. And the media still calls them “refugees” and us evil Nazis. It’s like Joseph Goebbels came to life again and rules our media once again, just this time from the left side. And Angela Merkel is for me just a 2nd Adolf Hitler. Period!
And yes, you cannot rely on our police force at all. At first they are heavily outnumbered, 2nd they are ordered by the parties to not do anything against migrants, refugees or foreigners alike, 3rd the average response time is too large because there are no free police officers and 4th most of our police officers are weak dwarves (nothing compared to your American cops) and the women…. well, what do you think a foreign rapist thinks of a female police woman that is just 1.50 meters tall because our leftist feminist Nazis want that only women do all the work while saying we men are all just antisocial, useless scum? No guys, more and more Germans finally learn to rely on themselves. Some like me already started years before the crisis but now it is more vital than ever.
There is also a saying that gives you another piece about the truth in Germany: A German and a foreigner fight. If the German wins, people speak about evil racism but if the foreigner wins they just talk about a migration problem, which means we should do more on integrating that guy who beat up the German! Guys, Germany is just a house filled with freaks, scum and criminal people. A nationwide Sanitarium for the scum of the world. Bismarck, Goethe, Schiller, Wagner and all the other great Germans? Long forgotten and never again such a German would come out of nowhere. They even teach our children in schools how evil we all are and how good and awesome it is to allow every antisocial scum to get in here. And if you don’t want to send your children to school the police is suddenly active again and knocks on your door because we have a law that orders you to send your children to their brainwashing schools. So if you now wonder why Germany is not the country of the poets and thinkers anymore, now you know one of the reasons why.
Germany never had a democracy and never will and now it is all too late anyway. And therefore many Germans now learn to defend themselves and try to arm themselves with everything they can and I proudly look to this. The Japanese already have proven that this kind of armament also works. They call it Kobudo or somehow like this. The only guys scared about this are of course our politicians because they want to kill us all (I just wonder who shall pay all the taxes for them if we suddenly only have non-working criminals and rapists walking around) and that is why it is so extremely hard to legally buy a gun, just as the text perfectly explains.
So I can tell you guys, defend your rights and your 2nd amendment because with this freedom in your constitution (Besides what they tell you we Germans do NOT have a constitution because what they call Grundgesetz is NOT a constitution according to § 146) you have something to defend yourself with while we Germans now have to improvise as good and desperate as we can, just like the rest of Europe has to right now.
Christian,
Thank you for speaking up. Anyone who reads this post should understand one thing: our 2nd Amendment to the Constitution is under fire by the same types who want to bring “European Sanity” to the states. It is not about hunting. It is not about sport shooting. It is not even about SELF defense. The second amendment is about protecting us from a centralized government who is afraid of law-abiding citizens who are ABLE and READY to defend themselves against that government.
As in Germany (where I was born while my father was stationed in Bamburg), the entire Democrat party believes THEY have the insight that makes them more able to “protect” us from ourselves (the law-abiding citizens, that is). As much as I find Donald Trump distasteful in his rhetoric and delivery, I find Hillary dangerous and harmful to our way of life to a degree light-years greater. So, in November (if he’s still running), I’ll buck up and vote for him against her. Better a Trump than a Frump.
And to those who would say “Vote for Gary Johnson”, I say not a chance since he endorsed the BLM (Black Liars Murder) movement.
‘Nuff said.
BLH557
Hey blh557,
your welcome. This text just made me again to write all my anger down here because it perfectly writes the truth in a very neutral non-propaganda way. Something the German media has never learned.
To your great post there is just something I would like to add. Although I do support Trump I sometimes do wonder what he is really up to but I say it like this: Trump might be the president soon but he does not have ultimate power. It is his senators you vote for and I think these are good guys. The more republican senators that are sitting in the American parliaments, the bigger the chance is that your country changes to be good again and won’t make the same mistakes Europe is doing right now. Trump is not the republicans alone; it is his senators that will make the big change.
Germany is a complete dictatorship, never we would have the chance to make a Brexit like the British done, although so many Germans would like to leave the EU as well. The votes for the Berlin parliament are in September this year and everywhere on the streets of Berlin you have these ugly faces again that give you fake smiles. Most of them are left, AFD posters are rare, I’ve just seen a few of them. It scares me very much. I think everything is lost here and I hope one day I find a job in another country, maybe even outside of Europe if I have the chance. And the fact that our politicians start to worry if we just try to arm ourselves now with everything we can, although even they saw good reasons why we do it (last New Year’s Eve), makes me boil again.
Wish you all the best!
My wife is from Darmstadt. I’ve been to Germany several times.
I can see a lot of the crap going on and the government run media covering it up , downplaying it as if it’s just a few unrelated incidents.
But people there and everywhere see what is really happening ( there’s this thing called the internet) .
Her mother still lives in Darmstadt. She is coming here in September for a trip to Yellowstone.
She wants us to visit her there soon but I’m not to keen on going without my gun(s).
Keep on fighting the far left liberals/socialist and protest as much as you can .
If I end up coming soon I will gladly protest with you.
Hello Todd!
I do fully understand you for not wanting to visit Germany at all. I never was in Darmstadt so I don’t know what’s the situation there but last night I just walked through the streets of Berlin again and although mostly it is quiet, close to all those houses filled with “refugees” (all wanna be gangsters and not just the men but even the women that wear scarf!) I would never walk around without having my knifes. The situation here is out of control and if you ever shall visit us, I do advise you to not go around alone at night and do not look at anyone, especially not them. Just one short look for half a second can be enough reason for them to slice you up. It is so awful!
Don’t worry I keep fighting (as long as I have to be here) and if you want to support any patriotic Germans on a demonstration, if you ever have the chance, we gladly would like to protest with you, especially at the nationwide Pegida demonstrations that are still going on, although the media doesn’t want to advertise them and therefore does not make reports anymore like in the first days.
Wish you all the best!