RSS
Eurbarometer: Almost 70 percent of Romanians fear increase in crimes committed with firearms
No less than 68 percent of the Romanians think that the number of the crimes committed by using firearms is to grow in the next five years by 10 percent above the EU average, but the percentage of arms holders is quite low and 71 percent of people having a weapon use it for strictly professional purposes, says a Eurobarometer survey, which was published by the European Commission (EC) on Monday, October 21. But most Romanians are against some minimum standard regulations of the EU referring to the regime of the firearms and say that the national authorities should regulate the problem on their own.
In Romania 92 percent of the subjects said that they had never had a fire weapon as against 90 percent in the EU and out of the 8 percent that had or have such a weapon, 71 percent say they had or have it for professional reasons as they work in the police, the army or the security field. Eleven percent of the Romanians say they have a fire weapon for their own protection, 8 percent, for hunting, 5 percent for target shooting or sports shooting. In the EU the most numerous arms holders got a fire weapon for hunting, 29 percent have one for professional reasons, 23 percent, for sports or target shooting and 14 percent, for their own protection.
When asked how they would describe the level of the crimes brought about by the use of fire arms, 11 percent (12 percent is the EU average) of the Romanians participating in the Eurobarometer survey answered 'very high,' 42 percent, 'high enough' (37 percent in the EU), 29 percent, 'low enough (37 percent in the EU) and 13 percent, 'very low' (9 percent in the EU).
Of the Romanians that were interviewed, 68 percent think that the level of crimes brought about by the use of fire arms is to grow in the next five years, by 10 percent above the EU average, 6 percent think that it will go down (exactly as the EU average) and 23 percent opine that the phenomenon will stay the same (32 percent in the EU).
When asked what body is the most liable to be responsible for the traffic in arms from outside the EU to the territory of the community bloc, 53 percent of the Romanians mentioned the European Union in cooperation with the national authorities, from 64 percent, the EU average. The percentage of people who think that the above-mentioned problem should only be approached by the national authorities is 35 percent, higher than the EU average (26 percent).
Sixty percent of the Romanians firmly believe that the EU should cooperate with third countries in order to control the regime of the firearms and 27 percent tend to agree to this statement, percentages that are close to the ones in the EU (62 and 25 respectively).
Fifty-seven percent of the Romanians said they were in favour of stricter regulations for selling and holding firearms as the most efficient means to diminish the number of crimes brought about by them, by four percent above the EU average, and 36 percent think that this diminution could be made by other means (39 percent in the EU).
As for the regulation of the arms regime, the Romanians' opinions significantly differ from the European average. Thus, only 33 percent of the Romanians, as against 58 percent in the EU, think there should be minimum common standards in all the member states, and 61 percent think that the national authorities should have their own laws, by 23 percent above the EU average.
The survey was conducted in Romania on September 16-18 on a sample of 1,006 respondents and was published on Monday in the context in which the EC published a number of proposals for intensifying the struggle against violence associated with the firearms in the EU, Agerpres correspondent informs.