Americans aren’t the only people in the world seeking guns and other self-defense products in response to the increasing number of criminal and terrorist attacks. Americans, of course, have the Second Amendment, while Europeans face much stricter gun laws than even the most arbitrary US states.
Europeans—especially women and cops—are stocking up on guns, airguns and pepper spray for personal protection in the wake of the New Year’s Eve refugee sex attacks, the New York Post reported in mid-January.
The number of gun permits issued has recently quadrupled in Germany and Austria after the attacks in Cologne and Salzburg, according to the weapons industry.
“Women customers include waitresses that need to get home in the evening, and women that walk dogs regularly in the evenings. We are also seeing some coming in to buy them for their daughters,” Gerhard Fuchs, a gunsmith in Innsbruck, Austria, told Central European News.
Vienna Mayor Michael Haupl has promised to deploy 1,000 additional cops to patrol the streets—but many say that is too little, too late after about 200,000 asylum-seekers entered the country in recent months.
One in three criminals in Austria is a foreigner, according to 2014 figures by the Interior Ministry. In Vienna, it was almost every other criminal.
In August, fewer than 10 people obtained a license to keep a handgun at home for self-defense, while the number soared into the hundreds in October.
Sixty percent of respondents in a poll commissioned by Viennese newspaper Heute said the influx of refugees is a cause for fear and unease.
Franz Dorfner, who owns a gun store in Vienna, said he has been unable to keep up with demand.
“I have completely sold out of pepper spray and have to wait at least a month before they can provide me with any more,” he told Central European News.
In Salzburg, where several sex attacks were reported, store owner Constanze Dorn said she too had run out of pepper spray.
“I have never experienced anything like it,” she said. “I have ordered several hundred more. I don’t know how long they will last.”
The British Telegraph newspaper reported that airgun sales in Cologne rose sharply after the New Year’s Eve sex attacks, noting that German gun laws are strict but gas-powered air pistols, which are illegal in the UK, are readily available and can be bought without a license
There also has been a dramatic rise in applications for licenses to carry gas-powered airguns in public in Cologne as people look to defend themselves in the wake of the New Year’s Eve sex attacks.
Under Germany’s gun laws, only professional marksmen and registered hunters can obtain licenses for genuine handguns.
But gas-powered air pistols that resemble real pistols are readily available and can be bought without a license.
There is also a high demand for pepper spray .
Gun shop owners say a growing number of their customers are turning to the air pistols, which are designed to resemble genuine handguns, as a deterrent. A license to carry one in public is usually available to any adult without a criminal record.
The demand for private bodyguard services also has skyrocketed.
