Czech Parliament Passes New Gun Control Expanding Doctor Access to Gun Owner Databases

The Czech Parliament passed more gun control in response to the December 21, 2023, incident in which a legal gun owner opened fire at Charles University and killed 14 people.

The Daily Mail pointed to diary entries the attacker allegedly made, citing one that said, “I want to do a school shooting and possibly suicide.”

The mass shooter allegedly “murdered his father in the town of Hostoun” before heading to the university in Prague to carry out his heinous attack.

Czech Republic’s gun controls require would-be gun owners to acquire a gun license, and that acquisition includes passage of a mental and criminal history background check and a demonstration of good cause for owning a gun.

Other gun controls pertinent to legal gun ownership in the Czech Republic include passing a gun safety test, storing the gun according to regulations, and registering the weapon with the “regulating authority,” according to the University of Sydney’s Gun Policy Center.

However, the Associated Press reported the Czech Parliament wants even more gun control following the shooting. Therefore, the Parliament passed a bill which shortens the gun license renewal from ten years to five, thereby increasing the speed at which a gun owner has to be examined by a doctor. Moreover, the bill will give doctors “access to databases to find out if their patients are gun owners.”

Interior Minister Vit Rakusan is not sure whether the newly passed gun bill would have prevented the Charles University attack.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a pro-staffer for Pulsar Night Vision. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.