To date, nearly one million weapons are in the hands of citizens of Ukraine. This was stated by the Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Anton Gerashchenko on air of transfer of “Gordon” on the TV channel “112 Ukraine”. Video fragment of transfer is available on YouTube (28:45).
“Officially — 900 thousand. Of them 130 thousand rifles and about 800 thousand of a penny — smoothbore. As to how many unregistered weapons there is no precise figure. Today, we have allowed any kind of weapons to have on hand, except for handguns, i.e. pistols that can be worn covertly,” — said Gerashchenko on the question of the program host Dmitry Gordon about the number of firearms in the hands of the residents of Ukraine.
Gerashchenko added that “the numbers may be different, but they are not accurate.” He also said that he supports the holding in Ukraine of the Advisory referendum on the question of the legalization of weapons.
In June, the Verkhovna Rada Deputy Sergey Pashinskiy said about the preparation of the draft law on the free circulation of weapons in the country. Pashinsky noted that it is necessary to first define the categories of people who can not be afraid to give handguns. “These are people that are no comments have served in the army, the national police and SBU”, — he explained.
5 APR a former head of the Main Department for combating organized crime MIA of Ukraine Valeriy Chickens said that the country’s millions of caches of weapons, equipped members of the military operation in Kiev Donbass. He also expressed the view that former soldiers can become part of the underworld.
In September 2015, a petition was placed on the free possession of firearms in Ukraine. During the week, she scored the required number of votes. For the proposal in favor of more than 25 thousand citizens of the country.
At the same time, the Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko has opposed this initiative. “I can emphasize that only 11 percent of Ukrainians support the free possession of weapons. 72 percent against, my point also coincides with the 72 percent,” he said.