BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) – Serbian authorities on Sunday displayed many of the approximately 13,500 weapons, including hand grenades, automatic rifles and anti-tank rocket launchers, that have been handed over to people since the mass shootings this month.
Authorities have given citizens a one-month pardon for surrendering unregistered firearms or if they are sentenced to prison. It is part of a gun crackdown following two mass shootings that left 17 people dead, including many children.
Populist President Aleksandar Vucic accompanied police officers to a gun demonstration near the town of Smederevo, about 30 miles south of the capital Belgrade, on Sunday.
Vucic said about half of the guns collected were illegal and the other half were registered guns submitted by citizens anyway. He added that the weapons would be sent to Serbian weapons and munitions factories, where they could be used by the military. “After June 8, states will respond with repressive measures and the penalties will be very severe,” he said of the post-pardon period. “What do people need automatic rifles for? Or all those guns?”
Serbia is estimated to have one of the highest per capita weapon stockpiles in Europe. Many of them are war remnants of the 1990s and are being held illegally.
Other gun control measures include tighter controls on gun owners and shooting ranges. Authorities opened fire on May 3 after a 13-year-old boy snatched his father’s gun and opened fire on his classmates at an elementary school in central Belgrade. The next day, a 20-year-old man opened fire indiscriminately with an automatic rifle in the southern Belgrade countryside.
17 people were killed and 21 injured in the two shootings. This has thrown the country into turmoil and raised calls for change in a country that has seen decades of turmoil and crisis.
Tens of thousands of people have gathered in two protest marches in Belgrade since the shooting, demanding the resignation of government ministers and the banning of TV channels that advertise violent content and harbor war criminals and criminals.
On Sunday, Vucic rejected opposition demands for the resignation of Interior Minister Bratislava Gasic, who was also participating in Sunday’s gun demonstrations. But the president suggested the government could resign and announce a snap election at a rally scheduled for May 26 in Belgrade.
“I am not going to replace Gasic [interior minister] who is doing a great job,” Vucic said. “What did the police do?”
Opposition politicians have accused Mr Vucic’s populist authorities of inciting violence and hate speech against their critics, spreading propaganda in the mainstream media and imposing dictatorial rule on all institutions, which has divided society. claim to be helping.
On Friday, protesters in Belgrade blocked the capital’s main bridges and highways to push through their demands. Protests have also broken out in other Serbian cities, expressing sadness and anger at the shootings and populist authorities. While Mr Vucic claimed the bridge blockade was a nuisance, he, other officials and the media under his control sought to underestimate the number of protesters.
