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Jaworksi, Piotr. In: Faltas, Sami, and Vera Chrobok (Eds.). 2004 ‘Gun Owner Licensing.’ Disposal of Surplus Small Arms: A survey of policies and practices in OSCE countries, pp. 76-77. Bonn: Bonn International Center for Conversion, BASIC, Saferworld, and the Small Arms Survey. 1 January

Relevant contents

Gun Owner Licensing

Obtaining an arms licence, issued by the voivodeship (28) police commander, is not easy and entails meeting several precisely specified requirements concerning age, psychological and physical fitness, criminal record, etc.

A distinction is made in Polish law between licences for possession and for carriage. The police may limit or exclude the right to carry firearms when issuing an arms licence.

Civilian possession is not widespread in Poland which, unlike in certain other European regions, has not developed a 'gun culture'. There are few registered firearms in the possession of private individuals - in a country with almost 40 million inhabitants, there were 29,998 short firearms and 197,121 hunting firearms owned by private persons in 2000.

However, there has been a sharp increase in the numbers of short firearms owned by private individuals -- a surge of almost 50 percent between 1997 and 2000.

Table 1: Total number of licensed items in Poland, 1997-2001
Table 2: Total number of licences issued in Poland, 1997-2001
Table 3: Total numbers of licences and items held by private persons in Poland, 1997-2000

28) The highest of Poland's three levels of administrative structures, comparable to an EU region.

ID: Q8906

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