“France has very strict gun laws, except for terrorists, who seem to always be able to get guns.” So sayeth Newt Gingrinch on Fox News’ Outnumbered. Not be pedantic, but French terrorists are also subject to France’s strict gun laws. For some reason, they choose to ignore them. More importantly . . .
The most recent terrorist attack occurred while the French government continues to operate under to Article 36 of the Constitution: État de siège (State of Emergency). French police can conduct searches and seizures without judicial oversight, and pols are free to censor the press.
While I’ve not read of any examples of censorship (they may have been censored), there’s been plenty of extra-judicial searches since the state of emergency was declared on 13 November 2015, in the aftermath of a series of terrorist attacks.
“As of 23 July 2016, almost 3,600 houses had been raided under the state of emergency,” wikipedia.org reveals, “leading to more than 400 arrests, the seizure of more than 500 weapons including 40 war weapons.”
Think about that: 3,200 warrantless house raids — 89 percent — did NOT lead to an arrest. Or worse. That’s assuming there was one arrest per successful raid. And that an arrest — rather than a conviction — constitutes a successful raid.
Not to put too fine a point on it, France sacrificed their citizens’ civil rights on the altar of public safety. And seems set to do so indefinitely.
Did I mention that under the state of emergency the Minister of the Interior and the prefects can “order places of gathering to be closed” and order that “legally obtained weapons be relinquished to them”?
The fact that French citizens are denied their gun rights plays no small part in the electorate’s tolerance for the country’s descent into a police state. If you can’t protect yourself, you’re happy to have someone else do it for you. And if that’s the case, why tie their hands?
After a terrorist attack, we often hear pols pronounce say, “If we change our way of life in response to this heinous attack, the terrorists have won.” That should read, “If we abandon our individual rights after a terrorist attack, the terrorists have won.”
New flash. French terrorists have won.
Reap what you sow Frenchy. The election cycle will be “interesting”. Please remove that French flag from your social media page. And Britain’s…
The issue isn’t gun control. It’s immigration control – specifically the lack thereof that is at the heart of the violence and social disruption.
The latest Paris muzzie cop killer was born in France. Hmmm.
That doesn’t change the fact that the previous multitude of attacks were foreign imported Daesh bags. France invited an army to come stay on its soil. Ironically, much like how Spain allowed the French army to march through Spain to Portugal during the Napoleonic Wars. Then ol Napoleoln figured he’d take Spain too.
I agree. The point is saying “immigration” is the problem is incorrect.
quote————————
Richard Collins says:
April 22, 2017 at 14:18
Its not that they were immigrants but rather Muslims. Its not Mormons, Buddhists, Hindus, Lutherans, or Baptists engaging in terrorism. Further, its the natural born Muslims and recent immigrants who are the culprits, not those who entered France in the early 1960s.—————–quote
A-typcal Right Wing Ignorance. The majority of terrorist attacks were from mentally ill people looking for a cause to die for and the balance came from unemployed natural born citizens. As stated by others France has not done as good a job as they could have to make it easier for people to assimilate into their culture, and get employment in meaningful jobs. It is not a problem of religion but one of economics and assimilation, a subject that goes right over the heads of the racist Far Right who by their very nature are against assimilation by refugees, immigrants or natural born children of the above.
Almost all of the perps in past two years were either fresh immigrants, naturalized or second to third generation immigrants, with the latest arrests including also converts. By your logic we should wait 20 years (second generation) to find out if things turn out the same here?
Its not that they were immigrants but rather Muslims. Its not Mormons, Buddhists, Hindus, Lutherans, or Baptists engaging in terrorism. Further, its the natural born Muslims and recent immigrants who are the culprits, not those who entered France in the early 1960s.
Lest we forget look at the UK, Sweden and Germany. All these actions are the result of which group? Worse. the authorities and elites turn a blind eye to reality. How long before people take the law into their own hands because the government cannot protect them?
Its wonderful to attack the measures the French have put into place until you have 65 dead bodies at some kindergarten or hospital. Are there needed safeguards against government abuse-of course. But to indicate that these searches have yielded significant results is to stick your head in the ground. The latest terrorist was well known having been a career criminal and shot at police before but he was released early. Isn’t this what too many states here do? What Obama did?
Besides such warnings are futile, no one will demand the letter of the law be obeyed when the first WMD is used by terrorists. What is needed is a rigid screening of all residents and naturalized citizens as well as those that support, enable radical movements. Once identified they should be shipped off to climes more to their liking like Cuba, Yemen, Iran. One only look at the Left’s goon squads at Berkley to realize they are nasty a threat to our liberties as the jihadists.
We have all seen the Constitution trampled over by Obama and his posse. Rhis will happen again unless the people, not our elected officials, rise up and demonstrate. Peacefully as long as the government obeys the laws. If it does not, our Founding Fathers words should be read and remembered. This country was not built by the weak and fearful. We should not listen to the consel of the weak and fearful.
“The Minister of the Interior and the prefects can “order places of gathering to be closed” ”
Like polling places.
The attack was an inside job.
Go Le Pen
Your the A-typical Right Wing xenophobic Moron. Le Pen has vowed to destroy the European Union which not only has brought increased economic prosperity but through loans from richer countries like Germany has prevented poorer and less well run states like Greece from going under and causing a European depression which by the way would have also caused an economic downturn here as well because the U.S. does billions of dollars of business with Europe. The European Union not only has saved Europe time and time again but our ass as well. Think about that next time your Moron Herr Trump’s moronic babbling’s claim that destroying the European Union would be a panacea for everyone.
Le pen (the bitch of Buchenwald) is also against immigration, even legal immigration which shows she is a complete historical moron in regards to the declining population of Europe which needs more people not less to pay into the system to finance the superior social programs their people have been enjoying for decades. It seems as though Le pen wants to emulate Trump and put France back into the Capitalistic dark ages where people go bankrupt when they become ill as is the case in the primitive hillbilly country of the U.S. of Hey. Good God who would want to live in a Country like the U.S, that has no affordable drugs or medical health care. Only a fool would and Le Pen is a very large fool.
The french think like the three Ls. Libertarians, Liberals and the Left totally support allowing murders to travel across open borders and murder as they please. France is a socialist country. In other word’s it’s a left-wing country. France will never allow its law-abiding citizens to have and carry guns. All of Socialist Europe is dead. The press is reporting the shooter was in police custody for threating to kill policemen. But they let him go.
Most Europeans don’t understand what liberty means. When is comes liberty they are ignorant. There are several hundred thousand American soldiers buried in Europe. We twice tried to save them. Let the white Europeans go. They like importing dark skinned murders. It makes them feel less racist.
Perhaps the Swiss and the Czech’s will survive because they don’t think like libertarians. They are keeping their borders closed. And for those who disagree check out the Swiss gun law restrictions. Muslim immigrants, if, they get to Switzerland, can’t legally buy guns. Interesting how the Swiss have not had any of these terrorist attacks????
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Switzerland
“Foreigners with the following citizenship are explicitly excluded from the right to possess weapons: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Algeria and Albania.”
Question?
What do these white European and dark skinned countries have in common??? Answer, they are all Muslim or have a large Muslim minority population.
Now you can call me a raaaacist!!!
President Trump built that wall.
I don’t think “libertarian” means what you think it means. And please don’t confuse libertarians with the Libertarian Party, which is anything but libertarian.
After the Paris terrorist attacks over a year ago a person On TTAG actually commented to me that libertarians were really “debating” the immigration issue, among themselves.
Libertarians will fade into history just like the republicans will after President Trump leaves office, hopefully after eight years, and we get some of our rights back.
There is more to living than legal marijuana intoxication and wearing a strap on dildo in public, that the anti-gun libertarians, who use “reason” at UT Austin seem to think. While they protest against gun civil-rights.
I wish you were right. But more and more libertarians keep looking like Liberals that are simply less anti gun. This past election I’m pretty sure many former libertarians abandoned the party and its current make up is actually taking away from traditional democrat voters that are disenchanted with the current far left DNC.
As a libertarian, I’ve watched as outlets like Reason become more and more leftist in their writing, with some dipping into the ridiculous SJW realm. The comments section still takes them to task, but if that is the future of libertarianism, then I’ll bail on them like I bailed on republicans a long time ago. When you do some research, many of the writers for Reason also write for leftist websites.
“Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Algeria and Albania.””
Hahahahahahaha!
Serbia = Orthodox Christian
Bosnia = 50% Muslim
Kosovo isn’t even a country, but it’s Christian.
Macedonia = Orthodox Christian
Turkey = Muslim
Sri Lanka = BUDDHIST
Algeria = Muslim
Albania = Muslim-Christian
Y’know, I just realized that almost all of these countries are either Christian majority or have large numbers of Christian. Good work for telling us about the threat of Christians.
P.S.: It says FOREIGNERS — if they’re naturalized citizens, they can buy.
France has true Democratic elections as it is done by popular vote. The U.S. Government deliberately set up the “electoral college” to prevent the population from electing a President as was the case in the Trump election were he lost the popular vote.
A recent study on Iran found much to its shock they have more democracy there than the “hillbilly state of South Carolina” were it is so corrupt in politics you may as well be living in a 3rd world country.
Perp was born in France, so in this case immigration is not a direct factor. What is a factor is assimilation into the culture of what it means to be French. Increased immigration leads to no-go zones, and areas that are highly concentrated in non-French culture. When Islamic percent reaches a critical mass (in a country or region), there will be more of these attacks. Acceptance of multi-culturism is a suicide mission and must be stopped.
The French make it very hard to assimilate. They have this very strict idea of what it is to be French. This includes an ironclad secularism — even your American crucifixes and “In God We Trust” would be forbidden. Being French is more than acting French and speaking French, it is also LOOKING French and having French HERITAGE. They are also doing things like deliberately putting pork into school lunches just to fuck with the Muslim children, saying that eating pork is a French tradition they’d better partake in if they want to be accepted. There is also such thing as a no-go +/ Sharia zone; these are areas marked for urban renewal. As I just finished explaining to you, the French are legendarily secular; why one earth would they allow ANYONE to enforce a religious code,
Americans have this amazingly easy-peasy attitude towards assimiliation, because it is so easy to assimilate into America. How to do it: speak English and hold a job. The palest Norwegian and the swarthiest Ugandan can both be American if they do so.
The United States has millions of Muslims. Know why we see so little terror from them? Because we’re welcoming; we let them be Americans, we don’t demand they put away their thawbs and jilbabs, we don’t force them to choose between us and religion. America is the great experiment in multiculturalism, and we’re succeeding because we’ve done it all the way instead of this half-assed “multicultural until you’re different from us, you filthy outsider” approach that Europe likes.
If that was true you FLAME DELETED the U.S, would have self destructed in the 1700’s. We are still here multi-cultural-ism and all.
Again and Again and Again….This does not compare for what happens here everyday.
What happens France, the EU and the rest of the world is RARE versus what happens here in the US EVERYDAY.
France and the rest of the EU is FAR safer than the US. Europeans have more freedoms Americans will never have.
From one fellow American to others. You are NOT a free country.
This happens way more here in the US. The only difference is that it’s Americans killing Americans, husbands shooting wives, kids shooting parents. You are 25x more likely to die by gunfire in the US than the other 22 high income nations. Fact.
Spare me more of your lies Robert, Spare me from your fake news agenda.
This will never change the french about what happened. The police were able to stop that gun-loving nutcase before he could make the problem worse.
The people of France will laugh at your debunked idiotic joke of how more guns makes us safe.
There have been no cases here in the US of people ever stopping an attack because the “good guy with a gun” is a fairy tale.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain with an AK-47!!!
Do you trust me or do you trust your lying eyes???
> France and the rest of the EU is FAR safer than the US. Europeans have more freedoms Americans will never have.
France and the rest of the EU *believes the government makes them* FAR safer than the US. Europeans have more *government hand outs* Americans will never have.
Here fixed it for you
The US outside the ghetto and places controlled by the Resistance are safer than Europe.
I want you revisit these childish thoughts after Le Penne beats the socialist scum out of France with brute force.
Europe is a tyrannical despotic entity.
No freedom of speech
No freedom to defend yourself.
Government can search you on a whim.
No right to jury, speedy trial, face your accuser, and of course you MUST incriminate yourself.
Regulations on everything from chairs to bananas.
Taxes on practically everything and the most expensive place to live on earth. Europoors are always amazed how much cheaper it is to live in the states so more economic freedom in the U.S.
Governments there can raid your bank account “for the greater good”.
Patients dying for not getting glasses of water or dying in the waiting room that happened to visiting Americans needing surgery. They just let them die. So much for “superior ‘free’ healthcare” that is available to them because we subsidize their defense!!!
Big brother is everywhere there.
The birthplace of Marxism, Communism, and Fascism that killed way more people than any American with a gun as well as several World Wars under its belt.
Birthplace of modern imperialism.
Many places don’t even let you pick the leader the oligarchy does (like Germany).
No initiative expecting government to take care of you like children.
I guess to a stupid Europoor or Europoor worshipper like yourself freedom is how much stuff the government gives you which is not freedom at all, you are nothing more than overgrown children.
The European index of freedom is only one step above a North Korean and I am being very generous at that.
Have you ever visited Europe? You’d think it was Zimbabwe. Here, let’s see, a scientist in America did all the number crunching on freedom, and here we go… Oh dear!
1. New Zealand
2. Switzerland
3. Canada
4. Australia
4. Ireland
6. Finland
6. Netherlands
6. Denmark
6. Chile
6. Luxembourg
People like you are why we get calling “Americunts”.
quote——————–Patients dying for not getting glasses of water or dying in the waiting room that happened to visiting Americans needing surgery. They just let them die. So much for “superior ‘free’ healthcare” that is available to them because we subsidize their defense!!!———————-quote———-
The A-typical Right Wing ignorance and bullshit. When horror stories like this are traced down it usually results in the story being a complete fabrication or a simple case of employee incompetence, not the fault of the system at all. If Right Wing bullshit were accurate then the survey’s taken during the Obama Care health debate would not have had people in foreign countries (including Canada) stating they would never go back to the “old insurance based” system which by the way in the U.S. kills thousands every year because they have no health care or cannot afford to get health car or cannot afford to pay for it or cannot afford the drugs necessary to keep them alive. The European and Canadian system certainly kills far less people because they are receiving the treatment and drugs they need to stay alive.
A profit based health care system as found in the U.S. is not only immoral, it is obscene and an affront to a civilized society something the penny pinching, greed monger, Far Right hopes never comes to America. Save a penny today and die tomorrow is the real religious credo of the Far Right and the Republicans (prostitutes of the drug and insurance companies) will make sure that happens.
I will buy your argument that Americans are more likely to die by gunfire than Europeans. But this is only true if you are black and live in the inner city. Places like Chicago are war zones. But the rest of the USA has murder rates very similar to Europe. I don’t think I have to explain to most of the readers here why that is.
As for Europeans being more free? That is mostly a joke. Many countries like England, Canada, and the Netherlands censor speech. If you criticize the Muslim religion you can end up heavily fined or jailed.
In England your more likely to be killed by a knife or blunt object than in the US so it’s all relative.
Europeans may not have as many guns to kill each other with but they’re damned determined to find any other device to do it with
quote——————-As for Europeans being more free? That is mostly a joke. Many countries like England, Canada, and the Netherlands censor speech. If you criticize the Muslim religion you can end up heavily fined or jailed————-quote———————
If that was true the “Charlie Hebdo” massacre would never have take place in France as they were heavily criticizing the Muslim Religion. They had cartoons depicting Mohammad that resulted in the attack.
You show your typical ignorance of France and other European Countries.
And in the U.S. if you slander religions you can and will be sued so what good is freedom of speech if you get sued for millions.
“There have been no cases here in the US of people ever stopping an attack because the “good guy with a gun” is a fairy tale.”
https://bearingarms.com/bob-o/2016/06/29/concealed-carrier-just-stopped-mass-shooting-night-club-media-remained-silent/
If it were only once, you could be forgiven for not noticing.
But…
http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/collection/good-guy-gun-stopped-bad-guy-gun/
Fine, I’ll take the bait;
http://controversialtimes.com/issues/constitutional-rights/12-times-mass-shootings-were-stopped-by-good-guys-with-guns/
France is truly “well fucked and far from home.”
France traded Nazi occupation for Muslim occupation. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Reading the drivel from ” The Resistance ” almost makes me ashamed that so many of our heros are buried in their country. Twice we pulled their fat from the flames, because they were not able to, and this is the kind of garbage that’s thrown out way. 100% of their rights and liberties are because of the brave men of our country ( and the other allies )who sacrificed their lives for halfwits like him who sneer at us in disdain. Makes me wonder if we should have told Stalin ” just take France. Have fun dealing with them”.
Not entirely a one way street. The American army wore blue for generations because those french uniforms given to the rebels in the American revolution were blue. When the American army used smoothbores, both flint and cap lock, they were in .69 caliber because the french had donated thousands of muskets. JP Jones fought his most famous engagement while on the deck of a french ship donated to the Americans.
French regulars and French Naval units fought in and off the coast of the colonies to assist us in our hour of need.
So, the aid went both ways.
jwm,
I would say that we repaid France in full. We owe them nothing at this point other than general good will that we owe to every nation which is not actively trying to stick it to us.
The ” aid ” may have gone both ways, but it was far from equal. Last time I checked we don’t have cemeteries full of young French men on the east coast. Did they help us during the Revolutionary War? Absolutely. Did they shed anywhere the amount of blood that we did, not once, but twice? Not even close.
Actually it was the French who won the war of American Independence ( a greed monger merchant war that should never have been fought) because it was the French Navy and French troops that beat the British not a rag tag hillbilly army led by a complete arrogant , incompetent Moron General Washington who lost more battles than he won and was almost captured twice. It was the French Navy who drove off the British fleet and the French who laid siege to Concord while the Colonials (polite name the British used in place of hillbilly) stood around gapping with their muskets up their ass and not partaking in the battle while Washington was miles away screwing his old lady assuming he could still get an erection at that age.
So next time even the intellectuals bemoan the fact we did not end up with a superior parliamentary style of government (because of the idiotic revolutionary war) that gets things done, blame it on the French for without them the British would have beat our ass good and we would all be much better off today as we would not have the weak central and divisive government we have today. Good God, heaven forbid, we might have even ended up like Britain and France with an actual civilized country ,not knee deep in blood and bullets and thousands of unnecessary gun deaths, not to mention a country that had civilized social programs that help people so they can get affordable education and affordable health care. My God that would be a fate worse that death to actually live in a civilized country.
Correction I should have said the battle of Yorktown not Concord.
Why do you blame Europe for The_Resistance? He is a halfwit, but he at least claims to be an American halfwit.
Cause he always cites Europe in his rants as some sort of Utopia as do many others like him since he is far from the only one doing it ignoring the many problems it does have. Whenever Europe gets a black eye he always chimes in to its defense saying “but….but America is WORST!!!!!” always deflecting from his sacred cow.
He is the typical pot calling the kettle black.
You live in the a-typical Right Wing Fantasy world. We could have and should have stayed completely out of WWII and we did not invade France to do the French any favors rather we did it for our own economic self interest. The name of the game was and always has been power and money and the U.S. Gov’t gets ignorant patriotic fools to act as cannon fodder to achieve their nefarious aims. Many WWII veterans who actually were in combat (not cooks and truck drivers) came back from that war saying that they ended up being fools as war was the rich getting richer and the working man getting his head blown off. And economic rape and power was what Vietnam was all about from the very beginning as yet just another never ending example of the U.S. Government meddling in world affairs. Did I forget to mention the Middle East Oil fields as well?
As a European, who has read several of your articles about Europe, I ask you to please stop.
I don’t get it. You say that Europe (or France as mentioned in the article above) “sacrificed their citizens’ civil rights”
Can’t remember that Europe has something like Guantanamo, or the PATRIOT act, but what we had was
a NSA affair. So basicially the US are not only neglecting the “civil rights” of their own people, but also of people living in other states!
Also I don’t know where you get you information about european gunlaw. We are still able to obtain firearm
(yes, every kind of firearm, except full-auto), but we simply have to go through some minor checks. It took me 2 weeks to aquire my firearms permit. So you accuse France of “sacrificed their citizens’ civil rights on the altar of public safety.”, although you live and praise a nation, which kicks both with its feet.
I was on your side a long time, but changed my mind lately because frankly said, your opinions are crazy.
You’r righty the US don’t have a gun problem, they have a sociological and cultural problem. Man, the values of the US are set complet wrong, but I know. I’m just a “liberal”, “socialist”, “communist”, etc.. Just live on like that and destroy yourself!
“Also I don’t know where you get you information about european gunlaw. We are still able to obtain firearm
(yes, every kind of firearm, except full-auto), but we simply have to go through some minor checks. It took me 2 weeks to aquire my firearms permit. So you accuse France of “sacrificed their citizens’ civil rights on the altar of public safety.”, although you live and praise a nation, which kicks both with its feet.”
I can (and have) bought guns without needing to wait for a firearms permit. At all. Mainly because we, under federal law, don’t need a firearms permit at all. (some states require them, but such rules are demonstrably illegal.)
So, I guess you could say that France hasn’t sacrificed their citizens’ rights, but only because France doesn’t say their citizens have those rights in the first place.
In order for a country to sacrifice their peoples’ rights, it first has to recognize those rights.
@Richard,
As a European, I don’t agree what you said.
I’m french and I live currently in Belgium, so I know the gun laws of theses both countries very well.
Yes, I legally have a glock 17and a semi-auto VZ-58 (and more), but only as a “sporting shooter”. They have to stay in my safe, It’s impossible to have a right to carry something. Also, I need to go to the shooting range at least 10 times per year to keep theses weapons, because if I stop sport shooting, I lose the right to keep my weapon at home. Every time I ask for a new permit, I have a 100€ tax to pay, and every five years, even if I asked for a permit 2 month ago, there is a global control (with a 100€ tax also).
In France, you can not have more than 12 weapons of the ‘worst dangerous category” (Semi-auto rifle, hand-gun, pump-action shotgun….). And you are limited to buy only 1000 rounds per year/per gun(very logical with the sporting practice).
In Belgium, it’s forbidden to train “in realistic situation”. You can not legally train yourself for self-defense with a gun !
For everything, even a single shot .22, you need a permit… and have to keep it in a safe.
Every years, there are new limitations… Until 1995, In France, a lot of weapons were free to buy, even semi-auto rifle with “high capacity'” magazines, pump-action shotgun, single-shot handgun, etc… In 20 years, we have lost a lot of it, little step by little step.
Last step: In 2017, a new law from European Union will limit the magazine to 10 rounds for semi-auto long gun, and 20 for handgun (well, only for legally registered weapon). And if you forgot to transform or give up an old magazine lost in your garage, you can be legally forbidden to have a gun for life (nothing like this for a bank robber or other violent criminal, fun isn’t it?).
Yes, death by weapons are very low in Europe, but why?
1/ because we don’t have the same gang problem than in some big US cities (but it comes, you can see the stats for Marseille in France, or the Seine-Saint-Denis, also in France).
2/ because we have no way to defend our-self when we are attacked. Yes, when a criminal is not shoot by a law-abiding citizen, It’s a point for “less gun violence”.
What the Far Right fails to acknowledge is that in France with strict gun laws it is actually way safer than in the U.S. as their gun homicide rate proves it even with terrorism.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/16/frances-real-gun-problem/?utm_term=.bb1ba851dd7e
In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, Donald Trump and other American conservatives repeated a familiar and predictable response to mass shootings in other countries: France has a gun problem. If Parisians could legally carry weapons, they could have fought back against the assailants.
That argument doesn’t have much support in France — a country that has around 1,800 firearms deaths every year, as opposed to the more than 33,000 in the United States. But there is certainly a kernel of truth to it. France does have a problem with guns. However, while an American might view that problem in terms of legal ownership, a French person might view it in a very European way: By thinking of borders.
As the attacks in Paris over the weekend and other events like it have reminded us, it is far from impossible to illegally acquire a firearm in France. This flies in the face of France’s strict gun laws. There is no right to bear arms in the country. To own a gun, you would need a hunting or sporting license, which needs to be repeatedly renewed and requires a psychological evaluation. For weapons such as the Kalashnikov AK-variant rifles used in the attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris, the background check required would rival the “clearance work done by the FBI for anybody employed at the White House,” French journalist Philippe Coste noted for CNN in 2012.
Despite these strict laws, France seems to be awash with guns. The guns used in high-profile terror attacks are really just the tip of the iceberg. In 2012, French authorities estimated that there were around 30,000 guns illegally in the country, many likely used by gangs for criminal activities. Of those guns, around 4,000 were likely to be “war weapons,” Le Figaro reported, referring to items such as the Kalashnikov AK-variant rifles and Uzis. Statistics from the National Observatory for Delinquency, a government body created in 2003, suggest that the number of guns in France has grown by double digits every year.
The attackers who hit Paris on Friday were clearly armed to the teeth. During raids conducted by French authorities over the weekend, more weapons have been found — including a rocket launcher, according to some unconfirmed reports.
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How did these weapons get into France if its laws forbid them? By likely a number of ways, but one stands out: Europe’s border-control-free Schengen area. For years now, internal borders throughout much of mainland Europe have had no passport controls or baggage checks. It’s perhaps one of the most dramatic results of Europe’s quest for closer ties: There are now 26 different countries within the Schengen area, which means a huge number of people (400 million) can travel freely in an area that spans more than 1.6 million square miles.
France is a part of this, and can’t really get out easily. As my colleague Rick Noack noted over the weekend, when French President Francois Hollande said he was going to close the borders after the attacks on Friday, it wasn’t quite so simple in practice. It would take some time, and very considerable manpower, to really control the country’s borders. In fact, one key suspect was actually stopped at the border on Friday night and later released.
The Schengen area has been the subject of much controversy recently, though the debate has largely focused on the movement of people and the flow of refugees through the continent. What’s perhaps less discussed is the movement of illicit goods. Money can be laundered over these borders, drugs moved, and arms trafficked.
It’s believed that most of these weapons come from the Balkan states, leftovers from the wars that took place after the collapse of Yugoslavia — some estimate there might be as many as 6 million weapons remaining in that region. Once they make it into the Schengen area, there’s little to stop them from making it all the way to Paris, where AK-47s can sell for 1,000 euros ($1,072), according to Bloomberg.
It’s also perhaps important to note that much of the planning for the attacks in Paris may have taken place in neighboring Belgium, which appears to have become a regional hub for weapons: Amedy Coulibaly, the Frenchman who was killed after he took hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris in January, is believed to have bought the weapons used in that attack in Brussels’s Molenbeek neighborhood.
So, what you’re saying is what the NRA has said for years. Regardless of law the illegal weapons will flow. All you’re achieving with stricter gun laws is to disarm the people that don’t need to be disarmed, the law abiding.
You read but do not comprehend. France is not disarmed but they do have strict gun laws and because of this their homicide rate is way lower, that’s a statistical fact. Even with the terrorism there the death rate for homicide was way lower than the U.S. France 1,800, and the U.S. 33,000 which totally refutes the NRA claim that in the U.S. you are safer because of the lack of any meaningful gun laws. Anyone in the U.S. no matter where you live and no matter what the hodgepodge of local laws or total lack of laws can get an illegal or unregistered “used gun” within minutes in any city because of the lack of vetting, lack of mandatory burglar alarms and safe storage laws.
Could we improve things without confiscation of guns? The answer is yes and its no big secret amongst civilized countries that thorough vetting of all guns sales, mandatory burglar alarms and mandatory approved safes for safe storage cut down on children being accidentally shot and thieves stealing guns out of homes. Thorough vetting weeds out many lunatics, and criminals from getting guns. No laws or procedures are perfect by any means but History has proven that other Nations that have adopted such laws have cut their gun homicide rates by large margins as compared to the U.S. To argue this point is to ignore the Stats and History in regards to what other Nations have already done long ago.
I forgot to add that if France had better border control laws coupled with their already strict gun laws that this would be more successful than arming everyone with unregistered and or un-vetted assault rifles and pistols as we have done for our Stats prove we are awash in blood and bullets even without the terrorism France has experienced.
You appear to not comprehend what you write. You go on about illegal weapons being freely and easily smuggled but then you segue into stricter gun laws against those that are obeying the law.
I suggest that you are a liberal/ progressive and as such you have only one goal. Guns in the hand of .govs and bad guys and a large, helpless pool of victims.
Fortunately Trump is going to have 8 years to load the federal courts in our favor.
There is no logical, honest reason for not honoring the citizens right to be armed to facilitate their own self defense and the defense of their loved ones. None at all.
I never said I did not believe people do not have right to be armed. I posted the laws that would cut way down on gun homicides. Your a-typical Right Wing paranoia clouds your judgment (assuming you have any).
As far as Trump, anyone who would state he is going to be in for 8 years is living in a fantasy world.
Nice deflection. People can have guns in your fantasy land. So long as they can fullfill your nearly impossible requirements. Why do you hate civil rights so much?
The only ones armed turn out to be the wealthy elite.
I say Trump for 8 cause your side learned nothing from his first victory.
One “mark of the ignorant” is that the Far Right has a paranoia about watching foreign news channels. If you had ever bothered to watch France24News you would never have made such an ignorant statement. One news program showed a French Priest shooting pigeons off his church roof with a rifle equipped with a silencer.
Another news program showed that French Pigeon hunters take 4 weeks off of work (try that in the U.S. and you would get fired, most Americans these days get no vacations at all) and they have a cabin in the woods where they fire at pigeons through slits in the cabin walls. Now what draws the pigeons to the cabin? They have a home made wood elevator a captured pigeon rides on to the top of a tree and he has a string tied to his foot. When the hunters see a flock of pigeons in the area they pull on the string attached to the pigeons foot and he flaps his wings drawing in the wild pigeons.
In another news program it showed French deer hunters with high powered rifles all dressed in green, you read that right dressed in green not red. Why? Because the French are smart enough to get into their tree stands and face away from the woods and look out into the open fields surrounding the woods. A man with dogs goes into the woods and chases the deer out of the woods that run past the hunters in the trees and there is no danger of shooting anyone. Contrast this to the Hillbilly hunts in the U.S. where they have deer drives where its too easy to get in each others way and shoot someone.
Just a few examples that show you should do your homework on the French before running off at the mouth and spewing out the usual hill jack prejudices against the French and gun ownership. Or maybe start watching foreign TV and get an education about what is really going on with other cultures as you just might learn that no, the Hill Jack U.S.A. often is not the best country in the world to live in by a long shot (pun intended Jethro)
And this rabid rant has what to do with what? People in France can kill pigeons.
Before the Paris attacks my wife and I were looking for a cottage, second home in France. We like the food and especially the goat cheese. Go about an hour or so out of Paris and you can get nice cottages for 300,000 euros give or take. The terrorist attacks are not what changed our minds.
It was the response of the French .gov that drove us away. They used the attacks as an excuse to clamp down on civil rights of the French people. Basically punishing their own for the actions of the terrorists.
Speaking of getting out more. You know how I can tell you’ve never been to France except on the net and tv?
Cause you’re ignorant of the facts on the ground. You’re what? 18? got a few months at a community college in iowa and you feel like you’re hot shit. You’re in for some big wake up calls.
Your racism literally oozes out of your post. Put yourself in the place of the French Government they did what they had to do to make France more safe. And remember genius you do not know anything at all about even your own history. Remember what the U.S. Government did after 9/11. They did exactly the same thing as France did. They took away civil liberties through the “Patriot Act” whose very name is a sacrilege to the intelligence of the American people as it was anything but patriotic. It later propelled Edward Snowden ( a real patriot) to expose what the U.S. Government was doing to its own people by completely destroying the “right to privacy” by spying on its own citizens. Most shocking of all President Carter revealed they were even spying on him as well and he could do nothing about it.
So lame head next time point the Racist finger at another nation you will find much to your embarrassment that you are also pointing 3 fingers right back at your self and your nation as well.
No the real reason you never bought property in France is that you were too much of a racist to appreciate or even try and appreciate or understand another culture or its problems. The only person you are fooling is yourself, to the rest of us its as obvious as a man running naked down the street and shouting for you to look at his new cloths.
And by the way genius, I have been to Europe but unlike you I took the time to study it long before I ever set foot there. And I am probably old enough to be you grandfather.
You’re a liar cisco and an almighty bad one. You’re not much older than 18-20. I’m in my 60s. If you were old enough to be my grandpa and still as stupid as you talk you’d have to be pants on head retarded.
Whatever happened to the quality trolls we used to get around here?
Its amazing even an old hillbilly like you has learned so little about the world.
That’s it? That’s the best you got? You hit like a little girl.
The cisco kid wasn’t a friend of mine
He drank the koolaid and Pancho drank the wine.
I am sure you did not compose that response all by yourself, you must have had assistance.
Cisco. That’s the problem with being a pro gun control statist. In order to believe the way you do you have to be a dullard who lacks heart and imagination.
So, naturally, you think everybody is as limited as you. I mean, really, call me a racist cause I don’t want to live in France. That goes past dullard and into retard level iq.
Your lame excuses for not wanting to live there and your denigration of French Culture shout racism loud and clear. Its always the Racist who claims he is not one.
Well, bless your heart. You’re actually proud of being stupid. I’m at a loss as to what to say next.
Remember to breathe. In-out. Has to be done round the clock.
Did you compose that all by yourself or did you require assistance?
Wow, cupcake, you’re actually hurt. I’ll be the bigger man now and quit. Run along and let your momy tell you how special you are.
Bye.
Europe is dead. At the rate they have been admitting Muslim immigrants and disarming their population, European culture will be lucky to last another two generations,. My wife was born in Europe and I have spent a great deal of time there . . . most European cities are looking more Muslim than European these days.
Quote—————–Europe is dead. At the rate they have been admitting Muslim immigrants and disarming their population, European culture will be lucky to last another two generations,. My wife was born in Europe and I have spent a great deal of time there . . . most European cities are looking more Muslim than European these days.————————quote
Germany admitted the most refugees in Europe, 1 million last year and 1/4 million this year. The population of Germany is 80 million. The idea that Muslims will outnumber Germans is absurd. Do the math, if you need to I will lend you my calculator. The first Generation of children of Refugees (as proven time and time again in History) will not even be able to speak their parents mother tongue and will be culturally assimilated. True, most people do keep their religion but just as in the U.S. Germany also has freedom of religion too. And anyone that has done a cultural and historical analysis of the religions of the world finds more similarities than differences as down through time newer religions simply copied from older religions so again the idea that my religion is superior to another is also totally absurd. More often than not only the names of the players change, not the players themselves. Rome and Greece were good examples. Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism and Paganism are all intertwined from history. The Muslim boogey man only exists in the minds of uneducated Bigots. The Far Right 50 some years later is still waiting on the Commie boogey man to put the domino theory into play.
Its interesting to note a most popular song in the 50’s called “La Bamba” was sung by an American, Latino (first generation born in U.S.) and he could not speak Spanish and had to memorize the words in Spanish to the song.
History has proven Refugees and immigrants have always been an asset to a country. They work harder, save more money and are more likely to start a business and be successful at it. They blend their culture and ideas with the host countries culture and ideas and create new ideas and businesses. They cannot run businesses alone and they hire people to help them run it which again puts people to work and further strengthens the economy.
European culture was dying long before the arrival of the refugees. People in Europe were having only 1 child or no children at all. The German Gov’t was even giving tax breaks to people if they would only have more children so the refugee influx was needed more than ever so that there would be enough younger people paying into the system to support the older people going into retirement. The same is true in the U.S. The U.S. desperately needs more immigrants and refugees, not less, as the U.S. faces the same tax shortfall, i.e. not enough young people paying into the system to support an aging “baby boomer” population.
quote——————–Richard Collins says:
April 22, 2017 at 14:18
Its not that they were immigrants but rather Muslims. Its not Mormons, Buddhists, Hindus, Lutherans, or Baptists engaging in terrorism. Further, its the natural born Muslims and recent immigrants who are the culprits, not those who entered France in the early 1960s.—————-quote——————-
You could not be a bigger racist and moron. In the U.S. the majority of terrorist attacks came from the Far Right with Dillon Roof waving the racist Confederate Flag as their star poster boy for a “perfect America” according to the racist Far Right. Their hobbies are shooting up abortion clinics, schools, and churches that minorities attend. They call it being the “patriotic Nazi” ad proudly displace things like the swastika and the confederate flag.
I think one thing that was not mentioned is the fact that France like the U.S. has engaged in colonialism in the Middle East which has brought on most if not all of the terrorism directed against them. When a smaller country or culture cannot fight a conventional war with its colonial master it results in fighting through terrorism. 9/11 was a good example of that in the U.S. as it had nothing to do with religion. The waves of attacks on France are more complex than one would think involving revenge against French Colonialism, failure of French Society to assimilate immigrants more rapidly, failure to provide meaningful employment, discrimination in employment of immigrants and a willingness to often blame an attack on terrorism when it is often times mentally ill people wanting to commit suicide by cop so to speak.
All the above plays right into the hands of he Far Right Xenophobic, racists fanatics which scream f rom the roof tops that it is all the fault of a religion or a race, not their own militaristic and economic policies that have brought these problems home to roost on their own heads. When you point the finger at someone you always have three fingers pointed right back at yourself and the problems are made worse and never solved.
War, hate and discrimination never solve problems they only perpetuate them, something far to complex to penetrate the Neanderthal mentality of the Far Right. If Hitler could come back from the dead today he would again, like Trump be elected and scream “You see, I was right all those years ago, the present problems prove it” and the Far Right would march lock step with him into self destruction once again.
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