* Source: AA - Drawing: Yang Lijie - China - Umut (Hope) Foundation 23rd "Individual Disarmament: Give Life a Chance" International Cartoon Contest
Click to read the article in Turkish
A 13-year-old child was wounded after the unregistered hunting rifle of father F.M. went off in Karayazı district in Erzurum.
Child A.M. started playing with the rifle in the barn next to their house. Shot in the chest, A.M. was taken to the Karayazı Public Hospital.
Referred to the Atatürk University Training and Research Hospital following the first medical intervention, the child has recovered from death there.
Scope of license eligibility extended
The amendment introduced to the "Regulation on Firearms and Knives and Other Tools" entered into effect by being published in the Official Gazette dated September 11, 2021. According to this legal amendment, the top officials of the institutions and organizations affiliated with the Presidency are now eligible to have a gun license. Moreover, the current and former Chairs and members of the State of Emergency Investigation Commission and the current and former metropolitan municipality secretary generals and provincial special provincial administration secretary generals have been deemed eligible to have gun licenses.
With this amendment, the "specially trained enlisted soldiers" have been added to the ones to be granted inventory guns, along with "commissioned officers", "non-commissioned officers" and "specialized gendarmerie sergeants." The contractors who reach the contract prices to be specified by the Ministry or are personally and de facto engaged in building, facility, construction and wide-scale repairs works have also been added.
Armed violence increased by 73 percent
Monitoring the news starting from January 1 till September 24, 2021, the Umut (Hope) Foundation found that the incidents of armed violence increased by 6 percent to 2,592 in Turkey in a year.
While 470 people lost their lives in these incidents of armed violence, 2,693 others were wounded. When compared to 2014, it is seen that armed violence has increased by 73 percent in Turkey.
In a statement, the Foundation underlined that Turkey was approaching September 28 Day of Individual Disarmament amid debates on the "Regulation on Firearms and Knives and Other Tools", which was introduced by the President and entered into force in Turkey by being published in the Official Gazette on September 11, 2021.
Noting that "apart from armament, one of the major problems of Turkey is feminicides", the Umut Foundation underlined that "by September 24, 2021, in the incidents that happened and were reported in the press in 266 days, 297 people died in 376 massacres of women."
"We say 'people' because the people who were with the women at the moment of the incidents and lost their lives are also included in the count," the Foundation explained further, adding that 151 women were also injured in these 376 incidents reported in the press. (AÖ/SD)
