Weapons in Spain

2023: Man arrested for making weapons illegally and learning online about it

Police in Spain in January 2022 said they found a workshop for the illegal manufacture of weapons using 3D printers, as well as cartridges for gas weapons, in a detached house located in Ripola (Girona).

According to official reports, the suspect also posted material on internet forums and platforms, explaining various ways to make weapons capable of firing potentially fatal shots. The man also distributed accurate and detailed information on how to make homemade explosives of high lethality, as well as drawings of prohibited parts such as silencers, barrels and triggers.

Police said a 3D printer was also found, which they speculated the man was using to make parts used to assemble gas weapons of different calibers.

The necessary raw materials for the manufacture of weapons were also found. This included guidelines for the use, handling and manufacture of firearms using 3D printing.

The investigation into the case began after police found a user posting information about the production and modification of weapons through publications on web platforms.

The instructions made it possible to make serious changes to the weapon. Such a modification could potentially turn them into banned weapons with a high degree of trauma, police said. Content posted online also included instructions for designing parts for weapons using a 3D printer.

During the investigation, Civil Guard agents also found several threatening messages against minority groups, as well as other messages related to extremist and anti-Semitic ideology.

Authorities said the man also bragged about participating in group training sessions for para-policemen, saying he was taking security measures in case security forces and the corps burst into his home.

2022: 3D Printer Weapons Workshop

In August 2022, the Spanish National Police arrested a man in Galicia who set up a 3D-printer weapons workshop at his home.

As it turned out, one of the most active members of this group was a resident of northwestern Spain, but the law enforcement officers had to make a lot of efforts to find out its exact location.

During searches conducted in his house, the police seized a AR9 submachine gun assembled from 3D-printed parts, several pistols and crossbows, printer materials and the printing machines themselves.

It was the second 3D-printed weapons workshop discovered in Spain. The first was covered almost two years ago - in September 2020.

According to experts, the emergence of 3D 3D printing has exponentially increased the danger of the spread of firearms, facilitating access to them by criminal or terrorist groups.

2013: 3.5 million firearms in the population

The Spanish newspaper ABC, citing data from the Ministry of the Interior, reports that as of 31.12.2013, 3,561,000 firearms were in the hands of the country's population. Of these, 190,887 revolvers and pistols, 308,579 rifled rifles and 2.817,976 smoothbore^[1].

Another 244,333 units are registered with the armed forces of the state and units that ensure its internal security (police, Civil Guard, etc.).

According to ABC, the number of weapons in recent years in Spain has remained almost stable and has not changed since 2007. The Spaniards do not lose their passion for hunting, but the economic crisis has crippled many and not everyone can afford to pay for weapons licenses, permits to shoot animals, etc.

"These are all registered and controlled pistols, machine guns, guns, etc.," the newspaper's experts emphasize. "And in the country there are about 300,000 firearms that are inaccessible to control by law enforcement agencies."

The topic, no less, even with such an impressive number of unaccounted for "trunks," the statistics of accidents in which weapons are to blame, in the Iberian kingdom does not exceed the average level in Europe, and in comparison with the American one, it looks like heaven and earth. In the United States, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNIDC), for every hundred registered weapons, there are 89 cases of their use per year. In Spain - only 10.

How the gun works

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See also

• Weapons in Russia
• Terrorism in Spain
• Spain
• Economy of Spain

Notes