Putin agrees with anti-gun U.S. ‘monopoly of violence’ promoters

Russia has had far more than its share of tyranny in the past 100 years. The State has never recognized a widespread right ot arms in Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin “opposes gun sales for self defense,” UPI reported yesterday. "I do not support the idea of free arms distribution in Russia," the report quotes from comments the federation head of state made to a Russian television station. "It is dangerous to artificially stimulate this process."

Putin’s remarks were in response to a shooting in Belogrod on Monday by a convicted criminal who allegedly stole his gamekeeper father’s rifle and opened fire outside a hunting store that had refused to sell him ammunition, killing six people, including two girls.

That was done in spite of Russia’s gun laws, categorized as “restrictive” by GunPolicy.org, a project of the Sydney School of Public Health administered by leading proponents of international “gun control.” In fact, Russia already has in place a “wish list” of what such advocates represent as “commonsense gun safety” measures, including a ban on ownership of handguns, an “assault weapons” ban, licensing and registration for “sporting arms” (with required requalification renewals every five years), bans on concealed and open carry (except for limited “sporting purposes” activities), mandatory background/medical/mental health checks, mandatory training, and the like, with severe penalties for gun possession violations.

Despite those restrictions, Russia’s homicide rate in 2009, the last year GunPolicy.org presented comparable statistics, was 15.1 per 100,000 people (per The Atlantic, “the highest murder rate in Europe”), compared to 5.48 in the United States, and its total suicide rate was listed at 36.14 for 1998, again the last year presented. By comparison, the U.S. rate was less than a third of that during the comparable period, with approximately half of that rate attributed to gun use.

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"What is the right to life, ingrained in our constitution, if you don't have the right to bear arms?” the gun group’s founder, Maria Butina asked. “If a person wishes to defend himself, he has no means for protection." Activist, Artyom Ryabov put things in starker terms, identifying the true core motivation of citizen disarmament by “compare[ing] the current situation to that of 1917, when he said those opposed to the Bolshevik Revolution were left without weapons and were therefore powerless to stop ‘tyranny.’"

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