Germany’s government will toughen the country’s gun laws after last week’s dismantling of a far-right group planning a coup. The Minister of the Interior of the country, Nancy Faeserhas warned of the danger of this movement, whose members have increased by 10% in the last year, reaching 23,000.
Faeser announced this Sunday that the weapons permit has already been withdrawn from 1,050 people of the so-called Reichsburger (“citizens of the Reich”). “We are not dealing with harmless madmen, but with suspected terrorists,” the minister declared to the newspaper Bild. German authorities estimate that some 500 members of the group currently legally own weapons.
In addition to the withdrawal of weapons licenses, the German Ministry of the Interior has asked local governments for help, which it claims greater control in the issuance of permits. “Here we need maximum pressure from all the authorities,” said the minister in this regard.
The German Police detained 23 members and sympathizers of an alleged terrorist organization in the area of the Reichsburger that planned to take over the Bundestag (parliament) and take members of the Government and deputies hostage. Two other people were arrested in Kitzbühel (Austria) and Perugia (Italy).
According to Faeser, 10% of these extremists are willing to resort to violence. According to data from the German Executive, last year there were 239 crimes of violence attributable to the Reichsburger.
This is a group characterized by its fundamental rejection of the Federal Republic of Germany and its legal system. It is made up of upper-class people, ultra-rightists and deniers, among whom were QAnon supporters.
