Gun Laws in Greece?

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I just read this and was curious about laws on civilian ownership of firearms in Greece.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/07/europe/EU-GEN-Greece-Lawless-Village.php

Police scour mountain village in Crete for drugs, weapons after attack on convoy

The Associated Press

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

ZONIANA, Greece: Hundreds of heavily armed police scoured this mountain village on the island of Crete for weapons and drugs Wednesday, two days after suspected smugglers ambushed police, leaving three officers with gunshot wounds.

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Are these the same people who fought the Persian's, Nazi's and Communist to a standstill, and not allowed weapons? I agree that criminals need to be weeded out, not farmer Joe who is minding his own business.
 
Nazi's and Communist*

*Both with significant material and financial help from the United States of Freemoney. ;)

I'm planning a trip to Crete or Croatia next summer, looks like Croatia is taking the lead.:D
 
I did see quite a few "unregistered" guns when I was in Crete... Machine pistols, autos, rifles rarer....

Crete is a great place, always felt safe wherever I went... Lots of problems caused by Albanian gangsters, pimps, and pushers... (some turk and bulgarians too from what I saw)... Food excellent, women beautiful, I was there sporadically over winter and spring, but lemons and oranges were always on the trees, if that means anything to you... Chania was nice, Souda a little dirty and grey but cool port town...

PM me with other questions if you want...
 
Are these the same people who fought the Persian's, Nazi's and Communist to a standstill

Actually Crete was taken out early in WWII by Germany even though they had an overwhelming advantage. Good front line leadership on the part of the Germans carried the day (as was common early in the war).
 
From what I've heard about it, Greece has quite restrictive laws about gun ownership. Cretensians OTOH, just don't give a damn about these laws. They get the guns they want, and without asking for permission to have them.
 
cyprus hunting weapons were allowed but nothing else didn't really seem to make a lot of difference
only gun shop I visited stocked loads of pistol ammo when I asked why
answer its cyprus no problem maybe they have a 9mm shotgun:)
on exercise in the mountains wondered into a village where they were having a wedding reception immediately given a drink and asked to stay :D
by 5pm the "happy fire started"
shotguns handguns of all sorts even an old nazi mp40:eek: managed to persuade gramps not to reload the mp40 by giving him some thunderflashes to play with :uhoh:
local copper was present thought the machine gun was a bit much but the bloke had killed lots of germans britsh and turks :eek:so tolerated
got very very drunk while wearing kevlar on my head
lovely people but insane
 
My mother is Greek Cypriot and I have been there twice. While only shotguns are allowed (not sure about rifles) for private ownership, there are many pistols, submachine guns and rifles in many homes. Whomever is in the Cyprus National Guard (which is just about all men under the age of 50) as an officer is allowed to (supposed to I think?) keep a military issue firearm in the home and I think this applies for NCOs as well and as far as I know this goes for all members. One of my cousin's husband has a submachine gun in his home, and another with a pistol.
When they target practice, I am not sure they use government issue ammo or not, and I am not sure if they are even allowed to target practice outside of their occasional commitment (I think my cousin's husband said something like every few years he has to do a week or something as a refresher). So maybe the reason why they have pistol ammo is because they practice with government issue service weapons.

....but then again, when I asked some Cypriots why no one was paying attention to some of the laws like the smoking ban, I was told that Cypriots just look at laws as a "guide" as what they can or cannot do and it is even crazier in teh mountain villages. SO I would not be too surprised if there were some weapon's stashes in some villages.
Basically though, the police and the government aren't worried about enforcing many laws on Cypriot citizens. Violent crime in Cyprus is rare and almost always committed by foreigners, so the local police probably have turned a blind eye more than once on the gun totin' villagers.

By the way, for those that don't know already, Cyprus is not a part of Greece, but some of the Greek "island culture" and attitudes are very similar I hear.
 
Just to revive an ancient thread --

Regarding the gun situation in Greece, there is what is legal and then there is what actually takes place. These are two different things. As a general rule, in Greece "everything is prohibited, yet everything is permitted." That is, the government overreaches, and then is widely ignored. This applies not just to guns, but to all aspects of life. (For example, that's the way the tax system works, or doesn't, as the case may be.)

First, the legal: Shotguns for hunting, skeet shooting, the protection of sheep herds from wolves, etc., are legal. Pistols can be possessed (and carried) only with a fairly-hard-to-obtain "may issue" type permit. Rifled longarms over .22 caliber are absolutely prohibited, as are full automatics and military arms generally.

Now, the reality: Illegal guns abound. There are at least two sources for this: First, leftovers from the wars (especially WWII and the Civil War that followed) that were never turned in. As has been mentioned, in certain areas, especially Crete, such possession is traditional and the local police don't do much about it. Secondly, with the collapse of Communism in neighboring Albania, the arsenals were opened and there was a resultant flood of all sorts of weapons into Greece. Hardly a night goes by without someone robbing a convenience store or settling a Mafia score with a Kalashnikov.

It has recently (this week) been revealed that hundreds of police officers, bank employees, etc., including a retired general of police, have been actively involved with the local Mafias in shaking down businesses and laundering the protection money. And there is the ongoing problem of local terrorism. All this makes "gun control" in Greece a total mockery.
 
Lest anyone get the impression, from my earlier post, that he can just waltz into Greece and obtain, say, an MP-40 for a few hundred euros, this is not a good plan. The Greek police, although they often turn a blind eye to gun possession by the natives, would just love to nail a foreigner for doing something illegal. This would prove to the world -- and especially to the EU partners -- that the Greek gun laws are not a dead letter. If one is going to flaunt the laws in Greece, one has to be plugged into the system. That is, you have to know people, and know them fairly well. An outsider couldn't tell if the person "selling" him a gun was a police informant -- and it's a good bet that he would be. Especially in Crete, where illegal guns are endemic, there's a strong tradition of suspicion of foreigners.
 
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