Current Events In Austria

Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997
From: Steven Kendrick/UK
Subject: CS: Pol-new laws proposed in Austria

"Austrian minister urges new gun laws after deaths"
By Mark Thompson

VIENNA, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Austria's Interior Minister Karl Schloegl called on Friday for tough new gun control laws in the wake of a shooting which left seven people dead.

``There is an urgent need for a tough, strict gun law and I will be seeking a majority (for it) in parliament,'' he told state television after a man rampaged through Mauterndorf, a village about 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Salzburg.

In the worst incident of its kind for several years, the 36-year-old shot dead six people, including a three-year-old girl, before turning the pistol on himself when police caught up with him.

Villagers said the unemployed man was a loner and familiar with guns. Police found several weapons and piles of ammunition in his flat, the television reported.

Austrian Chancellor Viktor Klima in May voiced support for a ban on handguns after a 15-year-old schoolboy shot his teacher dead with his father's revolver.

The laws were tightened in July of this year to force registered firearms owners to keep their weapons in a secure place.

Under the new rules, applicants for a licence must also undergo an assessment to prove their suitability to hold a weapon and shotguns have to be registered with the local police.

Schloegl on Friday stopped short of calling for a blanket ban on private ownership of handguns along the lines of recent British legislation introduced in the wake of the Dunblane massacre but said a tightening of the law could help reduce the number of such incidents.

Asked whether resistance from the junior coalition conservative People's Party would make a tougher approach difficult, Schloegl told Austrian state television he believed he would find broad support in parliament.

Schloegl said he was in favour of psychological testing, also for the country's existing 340,000 registered gun owners.

The sale of pump action shotguns was banned in Austria in 1995 after a sharp rise in murders committed with the guns, many of them by teenagers who killed members of their families.

-- The difference in Austria v. here is that there are far more gun owners per capita than here, and also there are a lot of big gun makers like Steyr and Glock there. This makes a ban unlikely, I think.

There may only be 4.5% with registered guns, but most guns haven't been registered until now. I reckon about 20% of the Austrian population own a firearm of some description, so it should be interesting to see what happens.

Steve.