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Petition for free carrying of arms gathers 25,000 signatures in Ukraine

President Petro Poroshenko is now obliged to consider it and make a reply

KIEV, September 4. /TASS/. An electronic message in support of the demand for letting Ukrainians possess and carry firearms, placed on the presidential website, has gathered 25,000 signatures. President Petro Poroshenko is now obliged to consider it and make a reply.

"The Ukrainian association of gun owners is demanding Article 27 of the Ukrainian constitution should be complemented with a clause letting each citizen of Ukraine carry firearms for the protection of life, health, home and property, the life and health of other peoples and the constitutional rights and freedoms in case of an encroachment on the constitutional sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine," the petition runs.

The presidential staff has said that the head of state’s attitude regarding people’s right to protection, which has been the first to collect 25,000 signatures in its support will be declared within a ten-day deadline.

Ukraine’s extremist group Right Sector has said "the people of Ukraine are perfectly aware that only with weapons in hand they will be able to maintain public order in their cities."

"Right Sector has invariably pressed for people’s right to carry weapons. It is one of the basics of our policy. We believe that it is a weapon that distinguishes a human being from a slave," said the press-service of the Right Sector, outlawed in Russia.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry has repeatedly warned of the growing flow of illegal weapons, in particular, from the area of the military crackdown on the southeast of Ukraine. About 80% of the weapons on the black market come from the troubled area.

"Before black market dealers were trading a Kalashnikov automatic rifle for up to three thousand dollars. Now the price is down to one thousand, and in area of the military operation it is easily available for $100," the deputy chief of Interior Ministry’s criminal police department, Sergey Redka said earlier. "In contrast to last year (2014) crimes involving illegal circulation of firearms have been up by a third to 2,947," he said.