History matters...in terms of explaining how things exist today in Germany on weapon mandates.
First, while it's not widely discussed....on 20 June 1913...in Bremen, a school shooting occurred.
This was a Catholic school.
What history records is that a male teacher (from a different part of Germany) had a mental breakdown and lost his job. For some reason, he traveled to Bremen and had in his mind a plan to kill school kids.
Prior to this....he owned no guns. So he walked into a gun-shop and bought several pistols. It's argued whether he acquired six or ten (oddly, facts aren't precise on this). The gunsmith selling the weapons felt it was odd....that many, and upon asking why he needed them....the answer just didn't make sense.
The gunsmith would relay the information of the guy to the local police (after selling them), and the police would ask a few questions. No one saw problems with this.
The gentlman (29 years old) would enter the school with the six to ten guns, and what is believed to be 1,000 rounds of ammo. I personally discount the ammo side of the story....because of the bulk/weight that would be required.
In the end....he'd shot/wounded around 20 kids and teachers....with four additional folks killed, and one kid who leaped from a stairway....dying from the fall. Cops arrived, and arrested the guy.
Local judge? He ordered a mental exam, and the guy was permanently dispatched to a insane asylum for the remainder of his life (dying in 1932). I should note for the record....he died of TB.
The shooting made front-page news for several weeks, and eventually....the Kaiser hyped up that gun laws were necessary. Your ability to just arrive in some city/state would require a period of residence before a weapon could be purchased.
The second event? As WW I came to a close in mid-November 1918...this became a highly disorganized situation. German soldiers basically walked off the front, with their weapons (to include hand-grenades).
From late-November to the end of March of 1919....in several areas of Germany....civil war brewed (particularly around Augsburg/Munich. In the end, the national government was forced to bring what remained of the German army, and establish control of the region (100,000 troops were dispatched in this case).
As 2020 came....a major worry confronted the nation....in that too many army veterans had military weapons in their hands. So about every two years....another gun mandate/law came up....ordering the public to surrender their WW I weapons.
There are various historical arguments that these 'give-up-your-arms' episodes failed.
In the mid-1930s, came the third major mandate....handed down by the Nazis....basically saddled upon gunsmiths to keep absolute records over repairs, serial numbers and names of owners. From day one of manufacture to each repair situation....guns began to be tracked.
I would suggest a 4th long-term event....in that hunting has been an enormous passion among Germans. Even after WW II ended, as East Germany existed under Soviet rule.....hunting weapons were allowed, and virtually all of the political bigwigs that existed in the DDR through the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s....were members of some hunting club.
It's not unusual today for a licensed hunter to hold ten to twenty hunting rifles that he has acquired over the years as his collection.
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