A parliamentary motion asking for an inquiry into the individual armament inside Turkey has been rejected by the votes from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Mehmet Tüm, a deputy from Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) who forwarded the motion with the signatures of 25 deputies after 17-year old high school student Helin Palandöken was murdered in İstanbul’s Pendik district by a riffle purchased online, said that there is no regulation at the point of sale of those weapons while he pointed out that in Turkey weapons go like hot cakes.
“Unfortunately, there is no information about companies selling guns,” CHP deputy Tüm said in reference to Helin Palandöken’s murder weapon was first brought under TL 1,000 from an online shopping site, then sold at TL 1,800. Tüm also added that 283 of 368 femicide committed this year carried out with firearms.
As a group proposal of the CHP, personal armament was discussed in the Turkish Parliament, indicated that the ratio of firearms reached to 80 percent, and only in September this year 1,575 people were killed by individual armaments.
Referring to the words of victim’s father, deputy Tüm said, “Unfortunately in our country they sell weapons online. Everybody can get a gun. Penalties are never deterrent. Lawsuits in the courts are constantly being postponed. Even if a penalty is imposed, the penalties are turned into pecuniary punishment.”
According to the General Directorate of Security’s previously published report this year, there are 25 million weapons in total in Turkey even though only 750,000 of them are registered.
