German officials urge even tighter restrictions on guns

Nation has rigorous rules to own weapons

Two days after a mass shooting by a violence-obsessed teen, German politicians urged tighter gun restrictions Sunday in a country that already has some of the toughest anti-gun laws in the world.

Germany has one of the lowest rates of gun-related deaths despite high levels of gun owner- ship. Even so, Friday’s shooting spree that left nine dead and dozens wounded prompted German lawmakers to say more needs to be done to prevent another massacre using firearms.

German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel told the Funke Me

diengruppe newspaper chain that the country “must continue to do all we can to limit and strictly control access to deadly weapons.”

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told the Bild am Sonn

tag newspaper, “We have to evaluate very carefully if and where further legal changes are needed.”

The gunman behind the attack outside a Munich shopping mall, Ali David Sonboly, 18, obtained his Glock pistol illegally and did not have a license. He would have struggled to meet stringent requirements for legal possession.

Applicants under 25 must undergo a series of tough checks that include whether they have a history of mental health issues. They must pass tests about gun knowledge and get approval for what the weapon will be used for. Unlike in the USA, there is no guaranteed right to bear arms.

Sonboly, born in Munich to parents who had emigrated from Iran, received both inpatient and outpatient psychiatric treatment last year to help him deal with depression and to deal with “fears of contact with others,” Thomas Steinkraus-Koch of the Munich prosecutors’ office said Sunday. The teen had planned the attack for more than a year, and a “manifesto” was found in his room, Baviarian investigator Robert Heimberger said.

The strict application process didn’t stop Sonboly from acquiring an illegal weapon, but it may have helped Germany reduce gun-related deaths to 57 last year, down from more than 800 in 1995, according to the website GunPolicy.org. That compares with about 13,445 people killed in the USA by firearms in 2015, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Germany has a population of 80 million vs. the USA’s 319 million.