Three girls, one seriously, got wounded from ricochets in an incident of celebratory firing at a wedding celebration in a village near Tetovo, yesterday. This is a third recoded incident in a row only in one week only, where people get wounded from celebratory firing.
Civil is repeating its public appeal to end celebratory firing, before someone gets killed. The damage is already high by wounding people and traumatizing attendants at weddings and other celebrations during the festivities season in the country.
We appeal to hosts and organizers of family festivities to replace guns and ammunition with legal means such as fireworks and only handled by qualified personnel. Celebratory firing is forbidden by law and is part of a tradition that belongs to the past centuries, when people didn’t have mobile phones and other communication tools. It is primitive, dangerous and illegal!
Gun culture is widespread in the Republic of Macedonia. According to our estimates, there are 110-170 thousand possessors of illegal weapons in the country, and nearly 170 thousand persons with licenses for private possession of firearms.
Civil has repeatedly alarming the public and the government on arms control issues in the past 11 years. Recently, Civil has conducted a number of awareness-raising activities. Recommendations to the Macedonian government were issued publicly in various formats (press conferences, letters, online publishing, etc.).
It is high time that societal and governmental stakeholders to take serious steps to overcome gun culture in the country and impose stricter measures of arms control. Once again, we stress that gun culture and arms related issues are not only a police task. Multidisciplinary and long-term measures need to be taken, instead.
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