MOSCOW, November 15. /TASS/. The Russian Guard has come out with a proposal for raising to 21 from today’s 18 the minimum age for gun possession.
"We insist on and support the idea of increasing the minimum age of those allowed to purchase firearms to 21 years from 18 and we are asking the legislators to use that as a basis," the Russian Guard’s deputy chief, Sergey Lebedev, told the media on Thursday. He was speaking at a meeting of the first group of the State Duma’s committee on security and resistance to corruption. The group was created for analysis and perfection of legislation related to the activity of private security firms and control of firearms in the wake of the Kerch college shooting disaster.
The Russian Guard’s spokesman Valery Gribakin explained that this legislative initiative would not apply to athletes, fishermen and rangers.
"In all, about 15,000 owners of civilian firearms are within the age category of 18 to 21 years. More than four million Russians possess civilian firearms. The age qualification rise will not apply to athletes, hunters and rangers," he said.
An 18-year-old student of the Kerch Polytechnic College on September 17 staged an explosion and opened fire inside one of the college buildings, killing 20 and injuring some 50 others. The attacker shot himself.
Crimea’s head Sergey Aksyonov said the student had obtained the permission to purchase a shotgun in a legal way. Earlier, a former adviser to the Russian Guard’s director, State Duma member Alexander Khinshtein, said the young man had obtained permission to purchase a gun in September 2018. For that he was to undergo a course of training and present medical certificates.