Poland’s gun boom: demand for weapons among civilians has increased to 40,000 permits per year
More than 320 thousand Poles already have the right to own firearms. Due to the full-scale war in Ukraine, the country is experiencing a surge in demand.
The Main Police Directorate in Poland has announced that a record number of gun permits were issued in 2023. This was reported by Defence 24.
Law enforcers have released data on the issuance of weapons permits. Most of the permits were issued for collectors (17,019), sports (12,363) and personal protective equipment (6,242). In Poland, there has been a surge in requests for weapons after the start of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.
The authors compared the number of licenses issued by year:
- 2023 – 40,867 permits;
- 2022 – 37,402 permits;
- 2021 – 19,939 permits;
- 2020 – 15,330 permits.
Currently, there are almost 844 thousand registered weapons. At the same time, 323,983 people had weapons permits. The demand for personal protective equipment also showed a huge increase, as there were only 154 such permits in 2022. Poland has also recently changed its legislation on issuing security clearances, which regulates the issuance of clearances for employees of various services.
