Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has announced plans to “almost completely disarm” the country after two mass shootings that left 17 dead. He announced it during an emergency address to the public on May 5, informed broadcasting company b92.
Vučić instructed the Serbian Interior Ministry to urgently prepare amendments to strengthen the arms and ammunition legislation. The Department of Justice has been tasked with drafting amendments aimed at toughening penalties for the illegal possession and sale of weapons.
“We will proceed to the almost complete disarmament of Serbia. Penalties for illegal possession of weapons will be doubled. son lyrics by Vučić RTS.
According to the President, these measures should lead to a reduction in the number of licensed gun owners from 400,000 to 30-40,000 people.
Vučić also demanded a two-year moratorium on issuing new gun licenses and bi-annual checks on gun owners. Checks will include a medical and psychiatric examination and a mandatory drug test, transmits newsti.rs.
Owners of illegal weapons are required to hand them over to the Interior Ministry within the next month or else “severe penalties and terrible consequences” will follow, warned Vučić, who estimate directs the publication Politika. To provide security in Serbian schools, it is planned to hire 1.2 thousand police officers.
On May 3, a 14-year-old opened fire on a school in Belgrade, killing eight students and a security guard. The attacker was arrested and placed in a psycho-neurological dispensary, his parents were arrested. According to Vucic, the teenager planned the attack and practiced at the shooting range.
A day later, on the evening of May 4, a massacre took place in the village of Dubona in the community of Mladenovac. Eight people were killed by the 21-year-old shooter. From May 5 to 7, mourning was decreed in Serbia.
The situation of firearms in Serbia
By estimated independent research project “Small Arms Survey” at the Geneva Institute of International Studies, in 2018 there were 2.72 million civilian firearms in Serbia. Of these, registered accounts for 1.1 million units, unregistered – 1.5 million units. There are 39.1 guns per 100 inhabitants in Serbia, according to the Small Arms Survey. The project has not released more recent data.
President of Serbia after the tragedies of Belgrade and Mladenovac reported 765,000 weapons are registered in the country, including 232,300 pistols and revolvers, 361,700 hunting weapons and more than 64,000 sports shooting weapons.
In 2022, the Flemish Institute for Peace in Brussels published report on the situation of possession of firearms in Serbia and related incidents of violence. He points to Serbia as one of the sources of illegal arms trafficking to Western Europe. Researchers attribute this to the presence of large state and civilian, legal and unregistered arms stockpiles, and the prevalence of organized crime in the region.
However, the exact extent of illegal possession of firearms among the civilian population is difficult to gauge given the recent history of warfare in the region, the report notes.
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