El Paso, Texas; Dayton, Ohio (no, not Toledo!): Two mass-shootings in less than twenty-four hours understandably has again prompted much thinking about the problem of guns in American society (not that any remedial measures are likely to be taken). They have done the same in the Czech Republic, where in a commentary on the “Plus” State Radio channel (devoted to news, debate and current events) Washington-based correspondent Jan Fingerland takes up the old conundrum: Zabíjejí zbraně, nebo zbraně? (Basically meaning “Do guns kill or do people?”)

Why would anyone in the Czech Republic be exercised by such a question? Reports of gun-related crime there are exceedingly rare; they’ve clearly got the problem under control (despite the presence of several leading firearms manufacturing firms). But why is that? It’s because of their historical base of forty-one years of Communist dictatorship (with six years of German occupation before that), during which there was never any question of anyone bearing arms except those explicitly allowed to do so by the authorities. Current Czech society started anew only fairly recently, coming up on thirty years ago; given that in the piece Fingerland suggests that “American society is not mature enough for such a widespread right to bear arms,” surely that should also be a worry for the Czechs?

Against that context there’s the second parallel between the two cultures when it comes to guns: within both, debate on the subject is conducted “between two extreme options.” Now, in the States you can see these “options” reflected on the street: “In some places,” Fingerland writes, “even mothers in the parks have a pistol on them, for instance Marge Simpson in the famed [cartoon] serial; elsewhere it is difficult to encounter anyone who ever holds a gun in hand.” Needless to say, that first picture is not the case in the Czech Republic. Nonetheless, there as well the argument tends to rage between those who insist guns are necessary to defend oneself against criminals – against terrorists! – and those wanting to ban them all.

As one could expect, Fingerland looks for a solution somewhere in-between. He seizes onto the quite apparent key fact that the big problem in the two latest incidents was the extraordinary mechanical power and speed of the weapons (both of the Russian AK series) the gunmen in Texas and Ohio wielded – particularly in the latter case, where he managed to kill nine despite being “neutralized” by police within a minute of opening fire.

On the other hand: pistols. “Depriving people of the possibility of owning a pistol is nonsense,” Fingerland asserts, “and few really want to anyway. A pistol is enough to stop a thief, maybe even to stop some crazy shooter” – who, in his world, whether in Central Europe or the USA, would never get the chance to get close to high-powered weapons, restricted to the military, in the first place.

In a masterpiece of reporting-by-understatement (by a journalist who, unfortunately, is credited only as “loa”), the Flemish paper Het Nieuwsblad reported yesterday on that new law in Arizona, USA that you might have heard about that allows citizens to take their loaded firearms into café’s and restaurants where alcohol is served.

Bear in mind, though: The armed can come into those places, but they aren’t allowed to drink any alcohol themselves. And they can’t come in at all if the owner happens to think it might not be such a good idea and posts a “No Firearms” sign at the door: around 1,300 of the roughly 6,000 establishments eligible to welcome a bit of packed heat have thought the better of it and “requested such a sign,” although they also are allowed just to print one out for themselves.

(For example, bar owner Brad Henrich unwittingly helps us learn an interesting Flemish expression when in the article he characterizes the very idea of mixing weapons with alcohol as welhaast bezopen: roughly “just about plastered/smashed,” i.e. crazy with drink.)

Naturally, the National Rifle Association needs to be consulted here for its view of the issue, and spokesman J.P. Nelson helpfully points out that this is nothing new, that similar laws are in effect in 40 other states. He then adds:

Funny things happen in cafés. People want to have a weapon on them, and if the café-owner has no problem with that, then there should be no problem. If someone drinks and gets in a shootout and kills someone, then he naturally must be prosecuted by the law.

Indeed, some other establishment-owners positively welcome the new law as enabling a “deterrent” (afschrikmiddel). It’s precisely those places posting “No Firearms” that criminals will go after, claims restaurant-owner Marc Peagler: “[They] know that no one is there who can stop them.”