Gunther Eggersdorf goes hunting nearly every day outside his village in Bavaria. He takes me down to the basement room where he keeps his guns.
“Here are the weapons,” says Eggersdorf. “Must be in the dresser. I have only the key. So I can only open this.” He unlocks a tall, black safe that’s as tall as him and shows his eight firearms.
Like all gun owners in Germany, he’s required to store his weapons in a locked safe.
And if gun owners don’t have firearms stowed away, the consequences are serious. Law enforcers go door to door and randomly check on gun owners. If officials find that a gun owner doesn’t have their weapons in a safe, they could lose their guns, be fined, or go to jail. The father of the 17-year-old gunman in Winnenden was tried and sentenced for leaving his pistol in his bedroom, where his son could access it.
Still, there are more than five point four million legal firearms in this country, or about 30 guns for every 100 people. That’s the fourth highest per capita rate in the world, behind the U.S., Switzerland, and Finland.
In Germany, you have to have a good reason for owning a gun, like if you’re a sport shooter, hunter or in rare cases, a gun collector. You can’t buy a firearm simply for personal protection—self-defense doesn’t count as a necessity here. The yearlong licensing process involves written tests and shooting practice, and costs several thousand Euros. Every applicant is background checked. And starting this year, every gun owner is tracked on a national register.
According to a 2009 poll by German public television, most Germans support strict gun regulation. But even with the policies currently in place, gun deaths and gun crimes still happen. Each year, about 200 people are killed by guns.
