After the rampage in Hamburg with eight dead, the demands for a reform of the gun law are increasing. Among other things, the managing director of the Green parliamentary group, Irene Mihalic, partially questioned the current regulations. For example, it is "more than questionable why only under-25-year-olds have to submit an official medical or psychological report when applying for a weapons permit," she told the editorial network Germany.
Since firearms in the wrong hands endanger human lives, all applicants – regardless of age – should have to submit such reports, Mihalic demanded. Also, corresponding suitability checks should actually have to be repeated at regular intervals.
"Since the alleged gunman of Hamburg apparently had a weapons permit, it must now be clarified exactly how he came to it," demanded the Green politician. "One hundred percent we cannot prevent such amok runs, but we are currently far from doing everything possible to prevent people like the gunman from Hamburg from getting firearms."
Putting inspections to the test
The domestic policy spokesman of the SPD parliamentary group, Sebastian Hartmann, told the RND: "The perpetrator of Hamburg apparently had legal access to weapons as a sports shooter." Now it must be clarified why the controls of the perpetrator had provided no signs of danger and had not led to a withdrawal of the weapons possession permit.
Previously, Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) had already insisted on a tightening of gun laws. She announced that she would re-examine the draft to tighten the weapons law for gaps.
The fatal shots were fired on Thursday evening during an event of Jehovah's Witnesses. The police were quickly on the spot. The perpetrator shot himself. As an extremist, the 35-year-old shooter was not known, according to information from security circles. Philipp F. comes from Memmingen in Bavaria and was registered in Hamburg since 2015, according to dpa information. The murder weapon was an HK P30, a self-loading pistol originally designed for the police by the German manufacturer Heckler & Koch in caliber 9 mm.
Home visit after warning
Since December 12, F. had been in legal possession of the pistol as a sports shooter, said police chief Ralf Martin Meyer. The weapons authority had received an anonymous tip in January. He had suggested checking whether F. was lawfully in possession of weapons and investigating the suspicion of mental illness. At the beginning of February, F. was visited unannounced by two officers of the weapons authority. There had been no relevant complaints.
F. was lawfully in possession of a gun ownership card. Both the semi-automatic weapon and ammunition were locked in a safe. There was a cartridge on the safe. He had been admonished for this. There was no legal basis for further steps. Meyer admitted that this was now different against the background of the fact. "You have to see what you can do better." Maybe laws would have to be changed."
After the shooting, the police found, according to the prosecutor's office, in the apartment of F. 15 loaded magazines, each with 15 cartridges, and four boxes of ammunition.