President of the Republic of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic said Friday that following the tragedy in Mladenovac, when eight people were killed and 14 were wounded, measures will be taken as a matter of urgency, one of them being the tightening of the conditions for possession weapons.
Article continues below
In his address to the public, Vucic expressed his condolences to the families of the victims in Vladislav Ribnikar primary school in Belgrade and in Mladenovac, in his own name and on behalf of the government of Serbia, and said that "we are united together in pain and sorrow".
"This is a mass criminal attack, after the attack on our children, and then on anyone who happens to be in front of the Hunting Lodge in Mladenovac. This is an attack on our country and every citizen feels it", the President said and added that all great nations in similar situations managed to find reasonable solutions after tragedies.
He announced that several thousand new police officers will be hired in the next six months, so that one police officer will be present in every school in Serbia, and stated that this will increase security in schools and reduce peer violence.
There are 331 schools in Belgrade, and 331 police officers will be assigned to them, Vucic said and noted that €25 million will be needed for other measures, and that this money is provided.
He pointed out that in connection with the mass murder in Mladenovac, a decision was made to raise the level of intelligence and counter-intelligence protection of the entire country.
The government of Serbia adopted the measures announced today by President Vucic.
The Ministry of the Interior will urgently prepare amendments to the Law on Arms and Ammunition, which would tighten the conditions for keeping and carrying short firearms, and those who do not meet the strict conditions will have to sell the firearms.
This measure is adopted in order to reduce the number of short firearms in the possession of legal and natural persons by 20%.
Amendments to the Law on Arms and Ammunition will provide for mandatory checks of persons who are allowed to possess weapons (including hunting weapons), which would include medical, psychiatric and psychological examinations, as well as a mandatory test for psychoactive substances.
These checks will be carried out every six months and every year.
The Ministry of the Interior will also consider the need to tighten the conditions for possessing hunting weapons.
The Ministry of the Interior, in addition to the moratorium measure on the issuance of licenses for the possession and carrying of short firearms, adopted on 4 May 2023, will take all measures within its competence to ensure a moratorium on the issuance of permits for the possession and carrying of hunting weapons for two years.
The Ministry of the Interior will issue a public invitation to persons who illegally possess weapons and explosive devices to surrender them within a month without consequences.
The Ministry of Justice, within the framework of the existing Working Group for the amendment of the Criminal Code, will prepare amendments to the law, which would tighten the penalties for the criminal offense of “unauthorized production, possession, carrying and trafficking of weapons and explosive substances†from Article 348.
The prepared changes will refer to the tightening of penalties for the following criminal acts:
• anyone who makes, modifies, sells, acquires, exchanges or keeps firearms for which a license can be obtained shall be punished by imprisonment from 1 to 8 years
• anyone who makes, modifies, sells, acquires, exchanges or keeps firearms for which a permit cannot be obtained without authorization shall be punished by imprisonment from 2 to 12 years
• anyone who makes, remanufactures, sells, procures, exchanges or keeps large quantities of weapons or weapons of great destructive power without authorization shall be punished by a prison sentence of 5 to 15 years
• a person who carries a weapon without authorization, the acquisition and possession of which does not have the permission of the competent authority, shall be punished by a prison sentence of 5 to 15 years
• a person who carries a weapon without authorisation, the acquisition and possession of which has the permission of the competent authority, shall be punished with a prison sentence of 1 to 8 years.
In accordance with the tightening of penalties for the criminal offense from Article 348 of the Criminal Code, the penalties for other similar crimes, such as Article 347 of the Criminal Code "making and acquiring weapons and means intended for the commission of a criminal offence", will be increased accordingly.
Our condolences to all the families of those terrible crimes. ■