History of Czech civilian firearms possession

[6] 250,342 out of 307,372 legal gun owners possess licenses for the reason of protection of life, health and property (31 Dec 2020), which allows them to carry concealed firearms anywhere in the country.The weight, lack of accuracy and cumbersome use of early types limited their employment to static operations and prevented wider use in open battlefield or by civilian individuals.The main weight of fighting rested on militiamen armed with cold weapons, however firearms shooting from behind the safety of the wagon fort proved to be very effective.However, as the Crusaders conducted unsuccessful cavalry charge against the Hussite forces on 21 December, an uprising of ethnic minority German townsmen handed the town into Catholic control.This left the Hussite wagon fort squeezed between the fortified town and the main enemy camp, which consisted of the best professional warriors from 30 countries that the Crusader force could assemble.[4] 1421 marked not only a change in the importance of firearms from auxiliary to primary weapons of Hussite militia, but also the establishment by the Čáslav diet of a formal legal duty of all inhabitants to obey the call to arms of elected provisional Government.[5] The word used for one type of hand held firearm used by the Hussites, Czech: píšťala, later found its way through German and French into English as the term pistol.[10] Name of a cannon used by the Hussites, the Czech: houfnice, gave rise to the English term, "howitzer" (houf meaning crowd for its intended use of shooting stone and iron shots against massed enemy forces).The agreement was signed between the Czech nobility and burghers after lengthy disputes over the extent of each other's privileges, as both began to fear possible widespread farmer and commoners uprising.This, in effect, made conventions of armed farmers and commoners illegal while preserving semblance of legal equality as the ban affected also the nobles and burghers.As permits could be granted either by nobility or by town officials, this put nobles and burghers in clear advantage over the farmer and commoner gun owners.While not stating such right explicitly for the rest of the inhabitants, the fact that the enactment sets details of universal carry ban (unless a person has a firearm carry permit) with details of enforcement and penalties aimed at nobles, burgers and rest of the people respectively, makes it clear that they continued to have the right to keep firearms at their homes in line with the 1517 St. Wenceslaus Agreement.[14] A 1754 enactment introduced up to one-year imprisonment for carrying of daggers and pocket pistols ("tercerols") as well as tough sentencing for cases of attacking or resisting law enforcement with use of these weapons.[14] Other enactments limited use of firearms in cities "close to buildings" and on state roads (especially shooting to air during religious celebrations), citing fire hazard as a main concern.[14] Gun control enactments adopted in the following three decades focused on banning of insidious weapons such as daggers or rifles hidden in walking sticks.[14] After the establishment of independent Czechoslovakia in 1918, the country kept the gun law of 1852 (see above), i.e. the citizens had the right to possess firearms and needed to obtain a permit in order to be able to carry them.After Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany in 1933, local ethnic German party established its own armed "security force."The party's security force was transformed into a paramilitary organization called "Sudetendeutsches Freikorps" which started conducting terror operations against Czechoslovak state, Jews and ethnic Czechs.Germany, Poland and Hungary seized Czech borderland following the Munich agreement with UK, France and Italy, in October 1938, immediately putting into force their own restrictive gun laws within the occupied territory.[15] In 1948, Communists conducted a successful coup in Czechoslovakia and started drafting a number of laws that would secure their grip on power, including the Firearms Act No.Under the new law, any person older than 18, with clean criminal record, physically and mentally sound that did not pose threat of misuse of the firearm could have license issued.Other fringe parties at the same time voiced their intent to introduce American style castle doctrine or to arm the general population following the example of the Swiss militia.[18] President Juncker introduced the aim of amending the European Firearms Directive as a Commission's reaction to a previous wave of Islamist terror attacks in several EU cities.The Czech Government announced that it will lodge a suit against the directive in front of the European Court of Justice, seeking postponement of its effectiveness as well as complete invalidation,[29] and did so on 9 August 2017.Citizens of the Czech Republic have the right to acquire, possess and carry arms and ammunition in order to fulfill the tasks set in subsection 2.[32] According to explanatory note to the proposal, it aims at utilisation of already existing specific conditions as regards firearms ownership in the Czech Republic (2.75% of adult population having concealed carry license) for security purposes as a reaction to current threats – especially isolated attacks against soft targets."[34] On 6 February 2017, Minister Chovanec and 35 other Members of Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament officially lodged proposal of the constitutional amendment with modified wording.It aims to utilize to the maximum possible extent both exemptions of the Directive proposal as well as the sole authority of national law provided in the EU's primary law for issues of national security [31] The legislative process continued as follows: The proposal was generally expected to be submitted again in Parliament after the 2018 autumn Senate elections, which ended with a decisive victory for ODS, a conservative party in favor of the amendment.[74] Within the system, private companies approved by authorities provide advanced shooting training to firearm owners that have E (concealed carry) type of license.[75] After passing a set of requirements and taking an oath, the participants become part of the Designated Reserve of the State, whereby they may be called up with their private firearms to support the work of police or armed forces in a crisis event.