Police in Liege, Belgium, investigate after Tuesday's grenade and shooting attack. (Belge/hln.be)
Belgium is aknowledged to have some of the strictest gun laws in Europe, similar to Canadian regulations in many respects. Private ownership of firearms requires licencing, safety training is mandatory, all firearms are registered, and federal organizations are responsible for administering and enforcing firearms laws.
However, on Tuesday, none of that appeared to stop 33-year-old Nordine Amrani, a married Belgian welder originally from Morocco, from murdering three children, and possibly a 45-year-old cleaning woman, and gravely injuring an elderly woman, before committing suicide, in a grenade and shooting rampage in a central public square in Liege.
According to numerous news reports, Amrani had a history of criminal activity, and was to be interviewed by police in Liege over a minor incident on the date of the attack.
A BBC profile on Amrani suggests that he was convicted of drug and firearms offences in 2008, after police searched a shed on his property and found an improbable stash of military weapons along with a marijuana grow operation. The collection included thousands of gun parts, as well as an AK-47 rifle, a FAL rifle, a shoulder-fired rocket launcher, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. The report also quotes an AFP news article on the arrest, saying that Amrani manufactured silencers for the weapons himself.
According to Amrani’s lawyer, the BBC news reported that his conviction for the 2008 weapons charges was overturned on appeal after it was found he had “permission” to have the weapons. However, they were not returned because of the drug charges. The lawyer reported that there were no other special restrictions on Amrani having firearms put in place.
The case is sure to bolster arguments for both gun control and gun advocates in Canada, where the demise of the so-called “long gun” registry is imminent.
Belgium strict firearms laws, similar to Canada’s, and an effective licencing regime. There are less than 60 gun homicides per year in the small kingdom, according to GunPolicy.org figures. Gun ownership is far more common in Canada, where there are 23.8 firearms per 100 population, compared to 17.2 per 100 in Belgium.
Like Canada, Belgium regulated ownership of firearms by type, and ownership of automatic firearms is banned, with “assault-style” semi-automatic firearms and all handgun ownership limited to those with special permission, for each firearm of those categories. Gun owners must also pass background checks and provide references to obtain a licence. All firearms must be registered, and all private sales or transfers of firearms are prohibited. Firearms crimes carry a penalty of 5 years’ imprisonment and a 25,000 Euro fine.
It seems improbable, then, that a convicted drug dealer could obtain hand grenades, an AK-47 assault rifle, and a revolver, allegedly used in this week’s attack. While Belgian police continue their investigation, it would appear at the outset then that the weapons were obtained illegally. Amrani may or may not have still held a licence to own firearms, but he certainly would have been prohibited from owning military munitions like grenades, and a fully automatic AK-47 rifle.
While critics of the Canadian government’s plan to remove the long-gun registry in this country may denounce the move, and point to random shootings like the Liege murders as a valid reason to increase gun control, it is hard to make an argument that more gun control would have been effective in the Amrani case, and Belgian gun laws are clearly more restrictive than Canadian ones. Had Amrani been a Canadian, and decided to shoot up the Ottawa’s Byward Market, he would have been breaking just as many laws as he did in Belgium.
Instead, it is clear that the Canadian approach is to do away with needlessly over-regulating legal gun owners and focus on preventing gun crime through targeting weapons trafficking, increased penalties for violent crimes, and at the same time ensuring legal gun owners meet strict safe handling and licencing requirements.
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