Hello weapons!

“In order to strengthen social protection measures for participants in a special military operation.” Deputies simplify the path to rifled and repeating weapons

It almost sounds like a shot: deputies Andrei Kartapolov, Alexander Khinshtein, Ernest Valeev and Anatoly Vyborny introduced to the Duma a bill “On Amendments to Article 13 of the Federal Law “On Weapons”. Is it really possible that, like in America, we will all be allowed to arm ourselves and continue to act according to the cowboy principle: “My home is my fortress”? Yes. But no. Not everyone will feel like a cowboy.

In short, then

changes to the Weapons Law will allow special operation veterans to purchase multi-shot and rifled weapons without prior experience in owning smooth-bore weapons.

Now the procedure is as follows: a citizen applying for the acquisition of a rifled firearm (in the explanatory note, apparently, there is a typo - it says “smooth-bore”) weapons, must have previously owned a smooth-bore firearm for at least two years, having no more than two barrels and not having magazine or drum, and have owned a smooth-bore firearm for at least five years. Logical. First learn to use a simpler and less lethal weapon, gain experience, prove that you will not shoot in all directions - and then you will get the right to a more serious gun.

Four deputies, proposing amendments to the law, want to remove this length of service - or, if you prefer, the probationary period. For those who have already gained experience in handling military weapons during the SVO. This is also logical. I have experience. They know how to shoot. They even learned to kill effectively. But more on that a little later. In the meantime, the question still arises: what is the point? There is logic, but the meaning is unclear. In the explanatory note, the initiators formulate this in an amazing phrase: “in order to strengthen social protection measures for participants in a special military operation and combat veterans in general.”

But what exactly is social protection? I don’t even really understand what the defense is here. For what purposes do former fighters need simplified access to rifled weapons? Who do they intend to shoot at in a simplified manner? Trenches, attacks - all this remained (or will remain) at the front. Who will these men fight in the rear? Yes, actually, not in the rear, but in peaceful life, where there is neither front nor rear? But the restyling of the law is explained by the need not just for protection, but for social protection.

We represent socially vulnerable people very well. And the country has social protection authorities. Remind me what they do? Benefits, compensation, payments, allowances. Assistance in employment and retraining. Allocation of social housing for low-income people. Medicine and insurance. A separate column is work with disabled people in all its manifestations, from nurses to psychologists. The list of tasks also includes various programs and social support measures for veterans and participants in military operations.

Nowhere will you find, when studying social programs and the tasks of social services, either shooting training or any other activities related to potential violence. Social Security does not deal with such things.

But it is within its framework that the initiators of the bill propose to formalize a simplified procedure for combat veterans to receive rifled weapons. Meanwhile, the work on real social protection for these people will be (and already is) through the roof. Thousands of people return with PTSD. Which we once called Afghan, then Chechen. People who saw death every day, killed themselves every day or risked being killed, perceive ordinary peaceful life completely differently. She becomes a stranger to them. They don’t understand it, and it seems to them that no one understands them in this life. They were once like us, but they came back different. And to fit into this “civil reality” again requires a lot of effort and a lot of time. This is the real social protection of veterans.

They need a job. They must get used to small salaries again instead of hundreds of thousands in lifting and combat wages. In addition, there are thousands of former prisoners who, “through the SVO,” have cleared their sins and will find themselves in a normal life with double difficult experience - prison and the front. And if society does not want these people to replenish the prison population, then it needs to work with these people. Surely there are such programs - but we know little about them and certainly little about their effectiveness.

But we know about something else. Not a day goes by without an “incident” happening to a former Wagnerian or simply a former soldier returning from battle. Who beat, cut or even killed someone. In general, it is not surprising that a person who has committed a crime but escaped punishment by signing a contract with the Ministry of Defense begins to think that he can do anything and get away with anything. He was documented to be convinced of this!

And such a person comes into a world where there are no assaults and shootouts, where it is not the laws of war that apply, but simply laws - this person receives simplified access to serious weapons. Simply because he has experience! And this weapon will become an element of his social protection!

Perhaps, on the contrary, such people should be prohibited from dealing with weapons at all for some period of time. Rifled, smoothbore - whatever? Precisely because they have experience and skills. Precisely because it is psychologically much easier for them to use this weapon than for a person who has a barrel, but perhaps he has not even shot at geese with it. Will such a ban be real—and specifically social—protection for veterans? Protection against possible mistakes and even crimes. But no one introduced such a bill. Four deputies introduced another.