Serbian President Vows To Disarm Country After Back-To-Back Mass Shootings

(Bloomberg) -- Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic pledged significantly tighter gun restrictions and announced a buyout of weapons after two mass shootings this week stunned the Balkan nation.

Announcing a “disarmament” of Serbia, Vucic spoke as the tally of the back-to-back crimes — a school massacre in Belgrade on Wednesday and a shooting rampage outside the capital late Thursday — climbed to at least 17 dead and 21 injured.

“We must have systemic changes in order to ensure safety for every child, for everyone,” he told reporters after assembling his government on Friday. “I know this won't be popular — there will be resistance from lobbies.”

Out of an estimated 400,000 gun owners in the nation of 6.8 million, the number of licensees will drop to between 30,000 and 40,000, Vucic said.

Gun restrictions will include a reduction in the number of licensed firearms as well as a mandatory buyout from individuals in an effort to reduce the number of households with guns, Vucic said. New legislation will also seek to establish a permanent police presence at every school, an effort that will involve hiring some 1,200 officers in a year, he said.

Wednesday's school shooting, involving a teenager who opened fire on his classmates in the center of the capital — killing nine — was already the biggest massacre in a decade.

It was followed late Thursday when a gunmen went on a rampage in an area some 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Belgrade, killing at least eight people. The suspected assailant was arrested by authorities on Friday.

Penalties for the possession of prohibited or unlicensed weapons will include a jail term of up to 15 years, up from 12, especially for automatic rifles that have been illegal for individuals in Serbia. Annual and semi-annual reviews of licenses will also be introduced, including for hunting rifles, Vucic said.

“Consequences will be terrible” for all who fail to hand over illegal weapons, Vucic said. After the first shooting, he had called for a two-year moratorium on issuing gun licenses, as well as a review of all the existing ones.

Such violence is rare in Serbia, which was at the center of conflicts in the 1990s that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia. The deadliest mass shooting since then took place in 2013, when a 60-year-old army veteran killed 13 people, including his own son.

(Updates with planned penalties from eighth paragraph. An earlier version corrected the day of the school shooting.)

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