What do you need to go through to get a license in Bulgaria? Can you CC?
Is armed self-defense possible in Bulgaria? Is there legal difference between DGU on street/at home?
Iâm not sure I can understand all of those definitions above, sorry, but Iâll try to explain what I can:
The license for smooth-bore shotguns is a shall-issue - you pass a course of practical and theoretical training plus some exams and if you are fit mentally and have a crime free record, the police usually grants a permit to obtain a smooth bore gun for hunting purposes.
After 2 years of flawless hunting (no poaching, etcâŠ) you can go through another course and obtain a license for âselectableâ hunting, which means that you can buy any semi-automatic rifle for hunting purposes (yes, including past and present military rifles, if they are not full-auto and if you can find them).
As for handguns, the things are complicated and difficult. Constitutionally, no regular citizen is to be denied the right to possess and carry arms, but for pity the reality is different. You can go through a course and apply for a handgun license - the process closely resembles the hunting license. However, you should have âsolid reasonsâ to own a handgun and your âsolidnessâ is judged by the chief of police in your living quarters (yes, one man decides your ârightsâ). So, if you are just a regular guy (not too rich, without connections to government or personally know the chief, etcâŠ) they most definitely reject your application.
Concealed carry is mandatory - only government forces could open carry their arms. For even bigger pity,
armed self-defense in Bulgaria is considered a crime and 99% of the cases usually end with murder/attempted murder conviction for the defending party. This goes even for home defense (!), even when your house is breached by an armed attacker (!). The only guaranteed way to avoid the sentence is for the attacker to assault you with his weapon and harm you, after that you can retaliate with deadly force. But even then there are some nonsense conditions - you can not retaliate with stronger weapon than his (if he carry a bat, you can not defend with a knife; if he carry a knife, you can not defend with a gun). All this nonsense works only to make the criminals bold and to force the ordinary people into victims, I can guarantee this.
Recently government changed the law so home defense against an armed attack shouldnât be considered a crime, but somehow courts and prosecutors arenât aware of this amendment and they continue to apply the old practice. Some weeks ago an old man in Sofia defended his property against armed gypsy intruders and wounded (not killed) one of them with his legally owned CZ pistol. Now he is in custody awaiting the trialâŠ
Given this fact, you can entirely count out armed street self-defense. It would end in criminal sentence 99.9% of the cases, especially if the defender managed to seriously harm and/or kill his attackers without getting severely injured in the act. Pity, pity laws⊠but I prefer to be alive rather than dead, so self-defense is mandatory for me.
sounds even more strict than the UK
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At least we donât have any regulations regarding knife or swords or any other melee weapons, which is going on for us which is fine 
We could import, buy, own, carry, use, train, sell them whatsoever as long as we donât use them against a human (circumstances explained aboveâŠ).
Damn, that is worse than in communist Czechoslovakia, both as regards access to firearms (which used to be on about the same level as in UK today) and self defense (which didnât change in the law, but became much more feasible in practice).
I am going for a walk now and reading this made me even think for a moment I should take two pistols, just to enjoy the freedom you folks in Bulgaria and UK donât have, but I think that the CZ 75 will suffice.
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Well mate, what if I told you that in socialist Bulgaria (before 1989) the regime was actually comparatively liberal regarding guns and especially regarding home defense.
There are many know cases of people shooting intruders with hunting shotguns back in the communist days and most of them got away without a criminal prosecution, even they were allowed to keep their guns Sound like USA a little, but it is true.
Because now there are a lot of complains about current gun/defense policy, our government usually excuses itself with inability to change things because European Union doesnât allow different policies⊠what a lie, considering how it is in Czech Republic or Slovenia or Hungary.
Hungary is extremely restrictive actually.
Slovenia is OK as regards access to guns, but CC next to impossible. Also, with next-to-no crime I donât think there are enough court decisions on DGU (defensive gun use) to make it clear what the application of laws on that is. (I spent quite some time in Slovenia).
Estonia is really good, with both CC and easy access to full-auto if you are member of army reserve. However their murder rate is actually terrible with the Russian gangs 
But yeah, incompetent and imbecile politicians always point fingers at EU, which is total bullshit.
The Czech Republic actually adopted shall issue concealed carry policy at a time when we had murder rate on about the same level Bulgaria has it now, IN ORDER TO make law abiding citizens able to defend themselves. Now our murder rate is at about 1/3 from what it was (and slightly lower than UKâs at 0.8 per 100.000).
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It is a very interesting post, thank you!
I didnât know that Hungary was restrictive, I was actually thinking the opposite 
Also, I didnât know Estonia is so liberal towards guns.
About the politicians - yes, they always lie and point at EU for not giving them the ârightâ to do good deeds for their people. Suckers, thatâs all I will say.
As for Czech Republic, as far as Iâm aware it is a wonderful country full of nice men and beautiful women. Iâve yet to visit it, but I will do some day.
Here in Bulgaria the murder rate isnât the most troublesome parameter - there are a lot more crimes involving burglary, rape, heavy beatings who donât necessary end with murder and they usually happen involving gypsies and/or troublesome Bulgarians who live a life of crime, yet they are no mafia nor gangs. Indeed those exact usual everyday crimes are the scourge of society here and most of them will stop as soon as our government grants its law abiding citizens the right to carry arms and defend with deadly force, ESPECIALLY at home.
Because it is true - restrictive gun policies usually increase criminal activities and work against the well being of the ordinary citizens. Any criminal here can easily obtain an illegal gun and do a crime, also he has no respect for peopleâs property and lives because his personal life isnât treated when he is committing a crime. Imagine how this would instantly change if the criminal knows every home he intends to break is armed and its residents are allowed to kill him on sight without fear of prosecution. Iâll tell you what will happen - the crime rate will vanquish to a negligible degree.
Sounds even more stricter than the Netherlands.
This is what national governments always do when they donât feel like changing policy towards what the population wants, they blame Europe.
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My country is not even in that table @snejdarek pointed
To all hypocrite politicians who deny common truth and speak how gun ownership would increase crime rate I can point out that Switzerland is one of the most gun tolerating countries in the world yet they have very marginal crime rate.
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You are on point with Switzerland, however one needs to remember that CC is also next to impossible there.
For me, CC is the most important of gun rights. So in that regard, it is Czech Republic and Estonia that lead the table in Europe.
I do actually believe that very much. Here about 8-10% of households are armed. The rules for DGU at home are same as on the street, however anyone who is thinking about breaking in must consider the fact he may face the âtunnel of deathâ (barrel of a gun), and in case someone is home and the intruder starts fighting instead of getting the hell out instantly, he is as good as dead.
In a recent high profile case, 5 guys invaded a house (some of them Bulgarian). The homeowner fought back and he actually chocked one of them - a professional karateka - to death.
http://www.blesk.cz/clanek/zpravy-krimi/204103/soud-s-mafianskym-gangem-loupez-se-zvrtla-michal-22-pri-ni-zemrel.html - pic of the deceased
Outcome is that the surviving ones all got between 4-7 years, and father of the deceased (didnât invade the house) got 8 for organizing it. I think that when he lost a son and got 8 years in prison, he must have realized real good that home invasion is a bad idea.
And I bet that whole family that went through quite a bad fight in the house is now armed to teeth and ready to avoid any future use of choke-hold through diligent application of high velocity lead. (The homeowner wasnât charged with anything.)
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Japan has one of the strictest set of gun laws in the world and a low murder rate. To be honest I donât think gun ownership by civil population is related to low or high crime rates. It depends on whether or not you live in a shitty country.
Japan is a whole different thing.
We Europeans could not measure Japan, not try to compare with it. Japanese mentality is beyond comprehension to a regular European and it has its origins in Japanâs own history.
I think that my example is correct and proper as far as Europe is concerned. Higher gun ownership plus right to defend mean lower crime rate and this is a fact here in our good old continent.
@snejdarek I think that they all deserved what only one of them got. I honorably envy you for living in such a society which gives its people the right to look after themselves and actually punish the criminals and award the law abiding citizens. Such morale is an example to us all and many Bulgarians like myself vouch for it, yet still somehow it remains a mirageâŠ
Isnât democracy what is all about - to grant rights and live by them? OK then, whoever doesnât like guns in a gun tolerating society could always stay away and refuse owning. Nobody will force him to go against his views.
Here is news about one of the stories I mentioned early⊠thatâs just one of many reasons why Iâm so much gun tolerant. The text is in Bulgarian, but maybe you can read cyrillic script.
What about Estonia? Lax gun laws, lower ownership and high murder rate.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0d/World_map_of_civilian_gun_ownership_-2nd_color_scheme.svg/1920px-World_map_of_civilian_gun_ownership-_2nd_color_scheme.svg.png
Looking at this map Serbia and the US should be infinitely more safer than the Netherlands and Poland.
Do you see a correlation between the map above and this one?
Donât you genuinely think that âmurderâ actually include mafia and gang related kills? This is not a pure factor because it has no connection to ordinary citizens and their lives.
And @snejdarek already pointed out that in Estonia there are a lot of Russian gangs who âimproveâ the murder ratio. This backs my views - whoever want to commit a crime, he will do it. Most often he will use an illegal gun. Mafia and gang member will do their âworkâ no matter the country or its policies.
So when speaking purely of regular non-organized crimes, those gun restrictions wonât help anyway, they will only make it difficult for any decent person to defend himself against such a criminal.
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Why would you not include those numbers? Besides they kill the wrong person from time to time.
It seems the Netherlands is not a popular destination for organized crime then 
Again, going by those maps it doesnât seem like their is a correlation between gun ownership and crime. You have countries with a high number of folks owning guns and little crime and countries where few people own guns yet little crime takes place. On the other hand plenty of countries with high gun ownership suffer a lot from high murder rates and so do countries with a lower gun ownership rate.
A few notes to the maps:
The map with number of guns per population is clearly using the UN estimates that include both legally and illegally owned firearms. That leads to a clear problem. There are countries with restrictive gun laws, such as Mexico or Brazil, but which have large number of guns according to the map. Majority of those are however in the hands of gangs and criminals, and law abiding citizens have very limited possibilities to own and use guns for their defense against the criminals.
I understand to some point (even though I donât condone the argument) that in UK it is on one hand impossible for citizens to be armed for self defense, but at the same time the government is somewhat successful in keeping guns away from criminals⊠unless we talk knife, axe or brick, that is, which are readily available to bad guys.
Then you have abovementioned countries like Mexico and Brazil with disarmed citizenry and savage and armed criminals. In US, arms are readily available to good people as well as bad guys.
Countries like Switzerland and the Czech Republic show that it is possible to have guns at the hands of the law abiding citizens and at the same time keep them difficult to obtain to criminals. And if you ask me, that is the best way.
US is also very special in that 91% of firearm related homicides happen between gang bangers. If you subtract this huge number, suddenly you are on the European average.
When it comes to Estonia⊠considering their HUGE Russian problem (both criminal as well as political), Iâd say that having half the Russian murder rate is not bad. And that in situation when legal guns are quite accessible in Estonia and next to impossible to own in Russia (and please donât come at me with the single shot shotgun being legal in Russia/UK argument)
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Well first off the countries with the highest murder rates in the world, Honduras, and Mexico completely outlawed guns for civilians.
Exactly the U.S despite what people may tell you is a very safe place. There are a few cities how ever that account for almost all the murders in the U.S. The biggest city in my state allows concealed carry and is waaay safer than London where guns are pretty much outlawed.
fun fact also those gang bangers get those gun illegally most of the time so a gun ban wouldnât have an effect on them.
Gun ownership greatly effects the violent crime rate but the murder rate is more closely related to income, education and things like that.
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@snejdarek Mate, I can tell you are well educated and smart person. If most people were like you the world would have been a better place
@SirWarriant Of course I am also pleased to see US citizen in you who has wits and understanding on the outside world, staying clear from the typical American cliche.
Personally, I am happy to have this discussion. My initial reasons to start it was to understand how gun laws work around the world. Of course, everyone could check the internet, but it is better if you speak to someone who actually lives there and has experience.
And of course, to share mutual passion about guns By the way, could some of you clear the hype around that famous AR15 rifle? Why is it so expensive? I suppose it has to do with rifle being American-made, but wow it has a price⊠Similar rifles from different companies sell a lot cheaper and I donât believe the quality to be lower, so any thoughts?
My brother owns an ar-15 im pretty sure he got it for around 800 U.S dollars and my father is having one custom built mil spec for around 700 but he knows the person building it. I think it depends on where you get it. Another reason theyâre so expensive is because the government is always trying to ban them and that sends people into a panic and they go out and buy them which makes the price sky rocket.
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