On Saturday, Welt am Sonntag reported that some 750 right-wing extremists in Germany had legally acquired firearms, almost doubling the 2014 figure of about 400 owners, cited by Deutsche Welle. Weapons, including semiautomatic rifles and pistols, were used in 79 recorded gun attacks against asylum-seekers and refugees, as well as on refugee shelters and volunteers staffing the facilities, in 2016. The figure is a significant increase over 2015, in which an estimated 30 such violent gun attacks were reported. According to thelocal.de, some two million people in Germany own the over 5.5 million legally registered guns, out of a population of 80 million. Recent reports revealed that three percent of registered gun owners in the US owned approximately half of all registered weapons in the country.

Source: The Local May 08, 2017 22:07 UTC