With three major terror attacks in less than a week, Germany has been rudely awoken to a harsh new reality. Two of the attackers, Afghan (17) and Syrian (27) with refugee status, had pledged allegiance to Islamic State before embarking on their terrorist mission.

Chancellor Merkel’s government is responding to the rising threat of Islamist terrorism by proposing to tighten gun ownership laws and giving greater powers to the army in matters of domestic security. Germany’s Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière called for tightening firearms laws, while Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen wants a greater role for German Army (Bundeswehr) in domestic situations.

Last fall, Germany was instrumental in suspending European laws governing the entry of Asylum seekers into Europe (Dublin Regulations). Millions of young men, mostly Arab and Muslim men from Middle East and North Africa made their way towards Europe. In 2015, Germany alone took in more than a million migrants. Many of these men not only brought their prejudices but also radical Islamist believes, which makes them easy targets for Islamist recruitment. Islamic State too has claimed using migrant influx to sneak in its operatives.

Series of Islamist terror attacks committed by ‘refugees’ and migrants have finally confirmed our worst fears. Europe’s Migrant crisis is fast turning into a security nightmare.

German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeiner Zeitung (FAZ) reported:

During the shooting spree in Munich, Federal Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen had considered the use of military on home soil. “Until the extent of the attack on Friday was unclear, a military police unit of the German Army [Bundeswehr] had been put on alert.”

Considering Germany’s history during the Nazi regime, deployment of military at home has been a highly sensitive issue and has long been opposed by all major political parties.

According to Berlin-based newspaper Die Welt, German Interior Minister de Maizière ‘did not rule out tightening the firearms laws’. On Monday, FAZ published an editorial attacking the right of individual citizens to possess arms. In a bluntly worded article titled “The best friend of mass murderer” the paper wrote:

The right to life of unarmed majority in Germany overweighs — if one interprets laws in a Human Rights-friendly way — than liberty of those who own legal weapons; [gun owners] in their collective ego stick to their private privilege that occasionally ends in a deadly manner, instead of giving it up. “The state and its security agencies would carry on doing everything in order to protect the safety and freedom of all people,” said Federal Chancellor Merkel after the shooting spree in Munich. Continue to protect — but how? The police mostly comes after the deadly shots have been fired.

The editorial is part of a wider campaign to restrict the right of citizens to own and bear arms in a country that already has one of the most stringent gun laws in the World. The editorial alleges that “privately owned firearms are increasingly turning into murder weapons.” The statement could not further from the truth. According to the statistics of Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), in 86 percent of the homicidal committed in German no firearms are involved.

No policy move by a government could be worse than disarming the citizenry in face of indiscriminate terror. Not willing to face up to the reality of rising threat of radical Islam, Merkel’s government seems to have learned all the wrong lessons from the recent terrorist attacks.

Video: Report on Sunday night’s suicide bombing at a music festival in Ansbach, Germany



[Cover image courtesy Bundeswehr, YouTube]



