In the wake of Friday’s shooting rampage in Munich—where a lone gunman murdered nine people and wounded 27 more using a 9 mm pistol with the serial number filed off—German officials are investigating why that country’s gun-control laws, described by the U.S. Library of Congress as “among the most stringent in Europe,” failed.
The gunman did not have a license to possess a firearm, according to The Independent—possibly because, according to Reuters, he “had spent time in psychiatric care,” which presumably should have disqualified him from owning a firearm under Germany’s laws. Nonetheless, those laws did not prevent him from purchasing the firearm “on the so-called ‘dark net,’ a part of the Internet accessible only via special software.”
Instead of pushing bans on starter pistols and more restrictions on law-abiding citizens, maybe the Europeans should consider how the right to arms might protect innocent citizens against such attacks.
