Serbia on Saturday mourned the lack of 17 folks in two mass shootings in two days, because the nation grappled with its personal tradition of weapons.
The funerals of a number of victims befell on Saturday, the second of three official days of mourning for the consecutive killings at a college in Belgrade, the Serbian capital, and in close by farming villages.
Thousands of Belgrade residents have already paid their respects to the victims of the primary capturing on Wednesday, laying flowers and lighting candles that now cowl a lot of a avenue resulting in the college, the place a 13-year-old killed eight classmates and a safety guard and wounded seven others. A day later, one other gunman raced by way of villages in a automotive with an assault rifle, killing eight folks and wounding at the least 14 others.
“We can’t believe that’s happening here,” Milana Vanovac, 56, mentioned as she appeared on the impromptu memorials on Saturday. “We thought mass shootings were a problem for other countries, not for us.”
Serbia is grappling with a gun situation that has lengthy been poorly addressed, specialists say. The nation ranks third on this planet for gun possession together with Montenegro, with an estimated 39 firearms per 100 folks, trailing the United States with 121 and Yemen with 53, in response to the 2018 Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based analysis group.
Promising to immediately handle the problem, President Aleksandar Vucic vowed sweeping modifications to Serbia’s gun legal guidelines on Friday, saying he was aiming for the “almost complete disarmament” of the nation. Mr. Vucic mentioned the authorities would purpose to lower the quantity of people that legally personal weapons, excluding searching weapons, to as much as 40,000 from round 400,000.
It was an bold promise, however one which is likely to be tough to satisfy in a rustic with a convention of proudly owning weapons and with huge portions of unlawful weapons which are tough to trace.
The excessive charge of gun possession is basically a legacy of the wars that got here after the breakup of Yugoslavia within the 1990s, in addition to a “tough guy” tradition, mentioned Bojan Elek, the deputy director on the Belgrade Center for Security Policy. In Serbia, particularly within the countryside, he mentioned, weapons are used to have a good time weddings and birthdays and are thought-about a way of self-protection.
“We’re very skeptical about these newly announced measures,” Mr. Elek mentioned, noting that these affected would primarily be authorized gun house owners who had been already prepared to show of their firearms. “Those who illegally own weapons won’t be affected.”
In Dubona, one in every of two farming villages south of Belgrade the place shootings occurred, residents expressed doubts concerning the doable disarmament of the nation — and their very own willingness to take part.
“There’s no way he can implement this,” Stefan Markovic, 29, a development employee from Dubona, mentioned of the Serbian president’s guarantees. “Nobody can do anything about this.”
Mr. Markovic, who misplaced a number of buddies within the capturing, mentioned the speed of gun possession was too excessive to be considerably lowered. He estimated that the majority of Dubona residents have a gun, though few have licenses. Asked if he had a gun, he smiled approvingly.
Several weapons had been discovered throughout searches of homes related to the gunman accused of finishing up the shootings on Thursday, the police mentioned. They included an computerized rifle that was not registered, a carbine with optics, a pistol and 4 hand grenades. Mr. Markovic, who lives close to the suspect’s household house, mentioned the suspect’s father, a deputy colonel within the Serbian Army, had “a whole arsenal” of weapons.
The precise variety of weapons in Serbia, a small nation of 6.8 million folks, has been tough to find out. Mr. Elek of the Belgrade Center for Security Policy mentioned the quantity had decreased over time. But there have been nonetheless roughly 2.7 million firearms in civilian arms on the finish of 2017, with fewer than half that had been registered with the federal government, according to the Small Arms Survey.
Mr. Vucic, the president, promised a full audit for gun house owners that would come with drug and psychological checks, enhanced surveillance of capturing ranges and a two-year moratorium on new licenses. He additionally referred to as for a one-month amnesty for gun house owners to give up unlawful weapons with out penalty, forward of extra stringent measures.
In Dubona, residents appeared hesitant about turning of their weapons in any respect. Some mentioned the gunman’s rampage had as a substitute persuaded them to maintain their weapons for self-protection.
“Imagine if he had come to our house and we didn’t have a gun to protect ourselves,” mentioned Milos Todorovic, who lives together with his household down the principle avenue of the village, the place bloodstains from the capturing had been nonetheless seen on Friday. “He comes to your door and kills you.”
Sitting round a backyard desk, strewn with pastries and small glasses of rakija, a fruit spirit common within the Balkans, his father nodded in settlement.
Mr. Elek mentioned the tradition of gun possession for self-protection dated lots of of years, when populations within the area tried to withstand the Ottoman Empire. It has been additional entrenched by the legacy of two world wars and the conflicts surrounding the breakup of Yugoslavia.
He added that weapons had been additionally a part of longtime traditions which have disappeared in large cities however stay within the countryside, with folks firing into the air to commemorate particular events. Mr. Elek mentioned one such custom, throughout weddings, consisted of placing an apple on the highest of a home and capturing it with a gun.
In Dubona, Maria Todorovic, Mr. Todorovic’s sister, acknowledged the necessity for modifications. “Something has to be done regarding the guns,” she mentioned. “Otherwise, where will it lead us?”
But she added that weapons had been so ingrained of their tradition that she generally tended to overlook how harmful they might be.
Ms. Todorovic mentioned she was within the household’s house backyard when the gunman began capturing a number of yards away. She mentioned she was not frightened at first. “When we heard the gunshots, we thought it was somebody celebrating a birthday.”
