The Free State of Thuringia has announced that it will focus more on right-wing extremist gun owners. The federal state’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies the AfD as “proven right-wing extremist”. Therefore, due to the legal situation, all party members are denied “reliability” for shooting.
The state of Thuringia wants to take stricter action against right-wing extremist gun owners. This should also affect AfD members in the Free State who legally own firearms as sport shooters or hunters. They could now lose this permission, as the “Spiegel” reports. In a letter to all local weapons authorities, the Thuringian Ministry of the Interior expressly points out, according to information from the magazine, that “appropriate revocation procedures must be initiated in principle” against the members of the AfD in Thuringia – i.e. they should be disarmed.
Thuringia’s Interior Minister Georg Maier said: “We only comply with the law and enforce the gun law.” Background to the action: Thuringia is so far the only federal state in which the Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies the AfD as “proven right-wing extremist” and not just as a “suspected case”. The head of the party in Free State is Björn Höcke, a leader in the ethnic camp of the AfD.
Since the laws were tightened in 2020, the weapons authorities have had to ask the Office for the Protection of the Constitution whether the person concerned is an extremist, both for new applications and for regular follow-up reviews of gun owners. According to the paragraphs, the members of anti-constitutional groups “generally” do not have the necessary “reliability” to shoot.
From this legal situation, as the Thuringian Ministry of the Interior now refers to in its letter, all members of the AfD in Thuringia are generally unreliable with regard to weapons law. The weapons authorities should therefore present those affected with the assessment of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution on the right-wing extremist state association of the party and summon them to a hearing. The aim and purpose of the gun law are unmistakable, the ministry said in the circular: “No guns in the hands of extremists.”
