The Ministry of the Interior (MUP) has recorded an increase in the number of applications submitted for the approval weapon purchase over the last three years, and experts, although they agree that the Law on Weapons is incomplete, are divided on the reasons why Croats have become "crazy for weapons".

According to figures provided by the MUP, Croatians own 314,783 pieces of weapons, of which 18,705 long and 85,963 short firearms, and 34,550 category C weapons used for loud shots and 6,565 essential weapon parts.

The presented data, the MUP said, also includes weapons belonging to police officers, members of the armed forces and judicial police, security guards, sports shooting and archery organisations, and members of other state bodies who are authorized to keep and carry weapons.

In Croatia, 47,470 weapons were registered for possession, 232,415 for possession and carrying, while a certificate of category C weapon registration was issued for 34,898 weapons, the MUP said.

The police note that the Law on Acquisition and Possession of Weapons enables the acquisition of weapons for the purpose of collection, however such weapons cannot be carried nor can ammunition be procured for them. The same law, they add in the MUP, does not prescribe restrictions in terms of the number of weapons that citizens can acquire.

Personal safety, after hunting, is the second reason for seeking a gun license

The data available to the MUP indicate that the number of submitted applications for approval for the acquisition of weapons has grown over the past three years. During 2020, 18,392 such requests were submitted, and next year, 20,057 of them. During 2022, the MUP received 21,226 requests for the purchase of weapons, while by February 22 of this year, 1,893 requests were submitted.

The MUP specifies that citizens most often acquire weapons for hunting , while personal security is the second most represented category. The third in order is sports shooting, the police adds.

A court expert for ballistics, firearms and cold weapons and the president of the Croatian Association for Practical Shooting (IPSC Croatia), Dubravko Gvozdanovic, in an interview for Hina, assesses that the increase in the number of requests for the purchase of weapons is not significant enough to warrant more media attention. He also notes that these are requests that have been submitted, which does not mean that all of these requests have been realized through the purchase of weapons.

Gvozdanovic points out that only about six percent of Croats own legal weapons , which, he believes, does not make us an armed nation compared to the rest of the world. However, He said that there are two reasons why Croats increasingly want to acquire weapons legally in recent years.

“The reasons lie in the general insecurity caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but significantly more due to the uncertainty that preceded the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which ultimately turned into a brutal war. This alone makes people feel insecure and I personally know many people who wished to have weapons for self-defense, without previously wanting to own them,” says Gvozdanovic.

The expert points out that in the increased interest in firearms at the local level, the successes of Croatian weapon manufacturers on the foreign and domestic markets should not be ignored.

At the same time, he draws attention to the Croatian company HS Produkt, whose products have become global bestsellers, namely the H11 pistol of 9×19 millimeters and the long-awaited civilian semi-automatic version of the VHS2 military rifle, which is the standard rifle of the Croatian army and police. He says that these are truly sought-after items, the sale of which also affects the story of the increased number of requests for weapons.

Unclear legal regulations

Behind the dry MUP statistics, as Gvozdanovic says, there is also a “catch” hidden, according to which it turns out that hunting weapons are sold the most in Croatia. He claims that the Ministry of Internal Affairs is reluctant to issue a weapons certificate for holding and carrying firearms for self-defense, so citizens use hunting tests and ID cards to acquire pistols or civilian semi-automatic versions of military rifles that they do not need for hunting in principle, but simply want to own them for their own sake, he says. It is not and should not be a problem.

Speaking about the Law on the Acquisition and Possession of Weapons, Gvozdanovic emphasizes that the regulation is unclear in many segments and even contradictory.

“The current law requires certain changes, for example, all the more so since the proposer, that is, the MUP, during the preparation of the new law in 2018, was not willing to accept proposals on the legalization of silencers, which today are becoming a necessity in Europe, especially for hunters. It was seen that the proposer of the law does not know the subject, it only works through bans and restrictions,” says the expert.