Gun sales in Austria, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic are rising and recent terror attacks across Europe are cited as a “general” cause behind the increase.
Some of the recent attacks were perpetrated with firearms–consider Charlie Hebdo(January 7, 2015) and the Bataclan concert hall and other Paris locations (November 13, 2015). Other attacks were carried out with knives and/or machetes–consider London’s Leytonstone Station (December 5, 2015), Magnanville, France (June 13, 2016), and the attack on a priest in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray (July 26, 2016). Still more attacks were carried out with unorthodox weapons–consider the truck attack in Nice (July 14, 2016), which took the lives of 84 innocents and left more than 200 others injured. And many other attacks could be listed.
The point is clear–Europeans face a danger that is no long external; perpetrators are among them and ready to attack at any time. And one of the results of these attacks, and the trepidation over future ones, appears to be a new appreciation for self-defense.
According to Reuters, a surge in gun sales is particularly visible in Austria, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic. Hanspeter Kruesi–“a police spokesman in the Swiss canton of St. Gallen”–said, “There’s no official explanation for the rise [in gun sales], but in general we see a connection to Europe’s terrorist attacks.”
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