Proposition 52K0029

Projet de loi visant à modifier la loi du 8 juin 2006 réglant des activités économiques et individuelles avec des armes afin de prolonger le délai de déclaration de détention d'armes.

General information ¶

Authors

MR Daniel Bacquelaine, François Bellot, Philippe Collard, Corinne De Permentier, Denis Ducarme, Jacqueline Galant, Marie-Christine Marghem

Submission date

July 12, 2007

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

arms trade

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V LE PS | SP Open Vld N-VA LDD MR FN VB

Voted to reject

Groen Ecolo

Abstained from voting

Vooruit

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Oct. 18, 2007 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

A number of members have been registered, in particular Mr Lahaye-Battheu, Mrs Galant, Mr Bellot, Frédéric, Van de Velde and Van Hecke. Do other members want to sign up for the general meeting? Mr Schoofs and Mrs Van der Auwera, who are also rapporteurs, also subscribe.

Mrs. Van der Auwera, would you like to report? Are you now publishing your report? I will give you the word immediately.

Mr. Speaker, it is Mrs. Lahaye-Battheu and not Mr. Lahaye-Battheu.

Apologize to me, Mrs.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, following these bills, the Justice Committee set out a number of lines in its meetings of 26 September, 3 and 10 October, also following further work in this committee on the entire weapons legislation.

Colleagues, the committee started its work on the basis of a bill proposed by Mr André Frédéric, aiming to extend the deadline for declaration of weapons possession. To justify this extension, Mr Frédéric stated in his bill that there is no doubt that the services of the governors and the local police services are currently overloaded and that not all services will be able to fulfill the required registration formalities by 30 June 2007. Therefore, he proposed in his bill an extension of the term. Nevertheless, the committee has decided not to continue working on this bill, but on Mrs. Galant’s bill, only because of the reasoning she put forward for the extension of the term.

In her bill, she, along with a number of others among us, states that the goal pursued by the weapons legislation – to get the weapons out of the clandestinity – has not been achieved by the weapons law of 8 June 2006. According to Ms. Galant in her bill, the reasons for this are, among other things, the excessive strictness of the law and the gaps in its implementation. The departments of the governors, the police commissariates and so on are poorly equipped and do not even have the circular letters or the regulations required for the application of the law.

The committee has therefore decided with 11 votes in favour, 2 votes against and 1 abstinence to continue working on Ms. Galant’s bill.

During the discussions in the committee, amendments from the various political groups were submitted with a view to extending the deadline. There was a debate about when this period should be extended.

At the request of colleague Lahaye-Battheu, from a concern to reach a good settlement on this matter and to work as carefully as possible, during that committee was therefore decided to hear a report of the working group charged with the evaluation of the weapons law and possibly the federal weapons service or the Advisory Council on this subject. This Advisory Council could therefore give us an extensive explanation of where the gaps in the application of the weapons law would lie.

As I said, so done. At the preliminary committee meeting, we were able to hear Mr Filip Ide, Chairman of the Advisory Council for Weapons, in his opinion on an extension of the deadline. Thirteen of the twenty members of the Advisory Board responded in writing. I must say that the answers were quite different. Some responded simply that they were opposed to any delay. Most – I can underline this here – are in favour of a delay, though linked to a change in the weapons law.

A mere extension of the transition period without legislative change is not desirable. According to the members of the council – which can also be underlined – the law needs to be amended. For this purpose, an extension is required, on the one hand, to allow the necessary time to amend the Arms Act and, on the other hand, to correctly apply the amended law. Regarding the proposed extension periods, the responses of the various members of the Advisory Board differed somewhat, ranging from October 2007 to December 2008. Finally, the committee decided and voted that the deadline for the declaration of possession of weapons will be extended until 31 October 2008.

To this end, Mr. Speaker, colleagues, my report. I am also grateful for the services because there is a very good representation of what happened in the committee. Now I would like to make a few comments on behalf of our group.

Ultimately, what is voted here today in this hemisphere presupposes a technical intermediate step. The great work has yet to be done, the substantial amendment of several points of the Arms Act. For the colleagues who were here in the previous legislature, we can simply refer to the resolution that was then adopted on this subject.

I must say that CD&V - N-VA was also initially not so happy to approve that extension of the deadline. Of course, this extension is needed. For us, however, this could not be done without having almost the guarantee that the 2006 Weapons Act would be fundamentally amended. Indeed, what is to be done with the extension of that transitional period if, in the end, there is no guarantee that substantial arrangements will be made with regard to the statute or arrangement on which a passive gunholder could rely?

Finally, we gradually found in the committee that there is a political will to thoroughly revise the gun law, adapted to the problems that arise on the ground, adapted to the uncertainty that lives with some gun owners. Especially the passive weapons owners. Soon after the 2006 Arms Act, it became clear that those adjustments were needed. In addition, we are not here today to our test paper as regards an extension of the deadline. However, we are now fully aware that there is the will of the majority of the committee to amend this weapons law. We are therefore pleased that hearing will be held in the committee soon and that all these steps have been taken. Therefore, we are proposing a change to the Arms Act. That is what CD&V - N-VA intended. The committee is doing a lot of work to address this in the short term.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, I will briefly address, on behalf of the Socialist Party, the bill that is submitted to us. I will make little comment on the device of the proposal as such since it is quite simple. As recently recalled, it aims to extend the deadline for the declaration of weapons until 31 October 2008. It will therefore also make possible prosecutions for possession of weapons that have become illegal unobjective.

This is, dear colleagues, a not negligible advance that puts an end to a real blur that has disoriented our fellow citizens who held weapons quite legally.

The law that we are going to vote will allow each of us to rethink the situation and make the necessary substantive changes to the gun law.

Anyone who legally holds a weapon, under the old legislation, will therefore be able to keep it until 31 October 2008 and will have all the leisure to comply with the new legislation.

Furthermore, as I said, it is essential to provide for the retroactivity of the postponement of the entry into force of the law in order to cancel criminal prosecutions initiated since July 1. This is precisely what was envisaged in the proposal submitted by my group, which was also taken back by the bill voted in the committee.

On behalf of the PS Group, I would therefore like to congratulate the almost unanimity that this bill has benefited from in committee. In such an important matter, it seems to me essential to transcend, as far as possible, the divisions between parties. The possession of weapons affects several essential rights: the right of ownership, the defense of physical integrity as well as the feelings of security and insecurity.

Many gunholders keep their weapons in memory of missing people or like to collect certain weapons. I also note that the law that we will amend today by extending the transition period had also been voted almost unanimously and that an acceleration of the procedure was consistent with the assassination of Antwerp.

This unanimity was also found in the vote, at the end of the last legislature, of a resolution which, based on the lessons drawn from the first months of application of the law, suggested certain amendments to it, in particular in terms of the amount of fee, simplification of procedure, temporary neutralization of weapons. The objectives of better controlling the arms trade and improving public security are indeed shared by all parties.

The additional deadline that Parliament gives itself today should allow it to work serenely, with the Arms Advisory Council, to finalize these necessary changes.

I regret, however, that this important matter has been the subject of ⁇ political attitudes. In an incredibly cynical way, some colleagues instrumentalized the bill vote to unjustly denigrate the Justice Minister, while she was part of a government in which four parties had negotiated and accepted the law.

It must be recalled, dear colleagues, that the vote in the House was achieved with the almost unanimous vote of our Assembly, especially by the parties that so violently overwhelmed the minister. This debate was, is and will be better than just political positions.

How can we explain that, at the initiative of some blue orange parliamentarians, the committee that had decided to work on the proposal submitted by the PS suddenly changes its shoulder rifle and chooses to work on another text including, however, the entire device of our proposal? This does not imply a necessary respect for the opposition parliamentarians, it is also significant of the political use that some have done and want to continue to do of this matter.

To return to the content of the law, while the unanimous government, MR, VLD, sp.a and PS, thought to do useful work, while our parliament thought to act in the right direction, we collectively had an insufficiently nuanced approach. We have not sufficiently measured the affective dimensions and the sentimental value that some gunholders attach to their property. Nor have we measured the security role a weapon plays for some people. We also did not measure the excessive cost that was demanded for new permits.

The vote we are going to carry out will allow, I hope, a further more serene discussion. The PS is pleased.

However, on the ground, I can only be surprised at some letters that tend to initiate legal prosecutions against those who would not have regularized their situation, while it was publicly known that the transition period would be extended.

In order to avoid any ambiguity, the Minister of Justice has considered it useful and necessary to remind the Attorneys General, the vote on the bill in committees and the vote that should take place today in the plenary session, and I look forward to this.

I dare hope that no party will throw oil on the fire for purely political purposes.

I want to be convinced that, in the upcoming debates, we will all have the will to find the best solutions for both gunholders and for the safety of our fellow citizens. In any case, we will have to listen more to weapons professionals, shooter associations, shooter stands, athletes and hunters. That is why I believe that further hearings are fully justified. This was decided and planned by the Commission of Justice yesterday.

Mr. Speaker, the PS will contribute to the debates in a constructive way, in particular by focusing on several priorities:

1 of 1. consider the possession of inherited weapons, for which an affective value may emerge;

2 of 2. allow in certain cases the possession of weapons without ammunition under reduced conditions;

3 of 3. remove the fee when renewing permits;

4 of 4. provide for full and sufficient compensation when certain weapons were destroyed while the owner had them legally before the entry into force of the Act of 8 June 2006;

5 of 5. facilitate the transmission of information between armors, police and the central register of weapons in such a way as to simplify the administrative burden of armors;

6 of 6. ensure national coherence in the collection policy developed by the governors;

7 of 7. Study all aspects of the consequences of new provisions with industry professionals.

I hope everyone approaches the debate in the same constructive spirit.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, I will let my colleague Bellot respond more politically to Mr. Bellot’s exhibition. by Frédéric. I would tell him, however, that I knew his talents as an actor, but that today he has proved exceptional. In my view, the Socialists forget the position they held before the elections. In March, in my municipality, I organized a conference to show the provisions that did not fit in the gun law; it gathered more than 800 people, but the Socialists did not want to react to the demonstrations of the population.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to receive memory lessons from anyone, but I would like to ask Mrs. Galant if the MR, in the government, represented by a certain Deputy Prime Minister Didier Reynders, who approved the bill, approved it. And if, indeed, the MR group, in the vote in the plenary assembly in June 2006, has, yes or no, approved this project.

There were 148 votes for and 2 abstentions. Let us stop disguising the reality and treating us as amnesicals! This project is a draft of the outgoing government, approved by 148 members of this assembly. And we have the names!

I think it is the PS who is amnesic following the mail sent by Mr. by Rupo! You have forgotten the positions you took.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, for the MR group, the extension of the period of declaration of weapons holding constituted a necessity for two reasons. First of all, everything was not yet ready at the level of concrete measures to implement the law. Then, this new deadline must allow to agree on the necessary and just changes to be made to the gun law.

However, it is not about questioning the whole philosophy of the law, but rather about making proportionate corrections. The MR believes that the purpose of recensing weapons is legitimate. On the other hand, we feel that the means implemented to ⁇ this goal are not always consistent and may even prove counterproductive for some aspects.

More generally, the MR also wants to recall two absolute priorities regarding weapons. We consider it essential to ensure the proper functioning of the central register of weapons. A report from the Standing Committee for the Control of Police Services also highlighted the need for improvement. We also need to work hard against arms trafficking. It is not normal that we can get weapons so easily on the black market in our territory. This fight against arms trafficking must be a real priority, which requires action not only at the Belgian level but also within the framework of European and international cooperation. It is therefore important to address very clearly the organized crime whose members can be assumed to possess weapons that are and will remain illegal.

In return to the gun law, this new transitional period must allow the new government and the renewed chambers to reopen the debate in order to modify certain legal provisions that are too restrictive without guaranteeing the safety of the population.

In the coming weeks and months, we will answer the following questions.

Shouldn’t the list of legitimate grounds be supplemented in order to include persons who have acquired a weapon subject to succession authorisation, as well as persons holding a hunting or sports shooter license and who, three years after having stopped their sport or hobby for reasons that are their own, must now, under the new law, abandon their weapons or render them unfit to shoot?

Shouldn’t we reflect on the situation of people who held a weapon for many years before the passing of this law, provided, of course, that this weapon is not prohibited?

Shouldn’t the legal framework for sports shooters be clarified in association with industry representatives?

Shouldn’t the functioning of the central register of weapons be optimized?

Wouldn’t it be time to considerably develop the means to effectively combat arms trafficking?

Should it not be appropriate to carry out awareness-raising operations on the potential dangers posed by the possession and handling of a gun?

Wouldn’t it be appropriate to allow the Advisory Board to give an opinion on any improvement it deems necessary to the gun law?

Wouldn’t it be useful to simplify the procedure for renewal of permits to hold weapons?

Wouldn’t it be appropriate to explore and technically deepen the track of reversible neutralization of a weapon?

Shouldn’t the fee to be paid every five years be abolished, or at least revised very sharply?

It should be noted that the report of the Working Group on the Evaluation of the Law of 8 June 2006 regulating economic and individual activities on weapons, as well as the resolution adopted by the Ad-hoc Working Group, contain clues to reflect on some of the questions I have just raised.

Our group submitted a text proposing solutions to the difficulties encountered on the ground. The Justice Committee has decided to conduct hearings of field actors. At our request, the Arms Advisory Board was consulted. It is important for our group that the changes that will be made to the gun law are developed in consultation with the field actors. The MR group feeds the hope that balanced solutions will be developed, and this within a reasonable time. It is essential, on the one hand, to put an end to the legal uncertainty caused by the 2006 law and, on the other hand, to stop the obvious theft of private property from the state.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, we have already seen a small, fierce debate with the MR and the PS, who are struggling to be the best defender of the arms lobby. It is a good start to the parliamentary year.

The present bill is not innocent. It opens the way for a relaxation of the gun law. This has become clear during the discussions in the committee. When we have listened carefully to the previous speakers, we have received confirmation of this.

We cannot support the easing of the law. This gives the Parliament a wrong signal. Everyone has their mouths full of the fight against crime. This week we were aware of the plans of the future majority in the field of justice and security: they want harder penalties, longer penalties, younger penalties. But at the same time, the same parties, who consider the fight against crime so important, want to ease the gun law. That is not logical. It would be better to intensify the fight against illegal arms trade and illegal arms trafficking, rather than stop 14-year-olds in youth prisons.

Colleagues, we shouldn’t be wiped out: the easing comes under pressure from lobby groups from various sectors, the arms dealers, the weapons manufacturers, the hunters, the shooting clubs. They have had to dive down after the racist murders of Van Themsche, but now that the process is behind, it is apparently time to leave the past behind us and go back to the agenda again. Economic interests should now again prevail.

The extension of the transition period is not a good thing. We do not say that alone. We are supported by several public authorities that have been consulted by the Commission. Remarkable, however, are the opinions issued by the federal police and the services of the Governor of Brussels, after consultation with his French-speaking colleagues, so still a conducted advice. We cannot simply leave those advice by ourselves.

The Federal Police informs that it is not possible to answer the question without knowing in what sense the law will be amended, a complete amendment or some improvements. The opinion of the federal police is negative if it is only intended to make some corrections. However, it is positive if major changes are made. What are they doing today? Thus, by extending the transitional period by more than one year, until 31 October 2008, it is clear the intention to amend the law in a profound way.

It also makes no sense to extend the transitional period unless a substantial change is made immediately. The new term will only be effectively used if a new possibility is offered to legally possess weapons.

That is the purpose of this bill. It is the forerunner of a easing that will be worked on in the committee in the coming weeks.

Colleagues, we would like to support a number of corrections to solve problems that have occurred in museums, with collectors or in the case of inheritance. Technical adjustments can provide a solution to this, for example by temporarily rendering weapons inoperable without losing their value. This was agreed in a working group that drafted a resolution in which Ecolo colleagues also collaborated in the previous legislature.

Now they want to go much further. This proposal gives a wrong signal, colleagues. With this proposal, the clock is turned a bit back. This proposal also extends the existing uncertainty, both for gunholders and for police services. Especially, this proposal will not make society safer on it. With this proposal, my colleagues, we cannot agree.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to briefly respond to this intervention.

I do not understand why it is so hard to present this document in a completely wrong context. I think this is not correct. The starting point for amendments to the Arms Act and also the starting point of the resolution, which, by the way, was approved almost unanimously, is simply to limit the illegal possession of arms. The aim has always been to get a view on the possession of weapons. It is confirmed on all sides that this has not been achieved with the 2006 Weapons Act.

In fact, you blow warm and cold. You say that you would like to contribute to a legislative change if it aims to defeat the holders of a weapon on the basis of an inheritance – a weapon to which they may be emotionally attached or which may also have a material value. That’s why it actually revolves over the next few weeks. I do not think it is correct how you want to describe this. Before you make these statements in substance, I think it is better to wait for the hearings in the committee, where we will also ask the speakers questions. It is clear, also from the police services, that a legislative change is needed, because many police services are not administratively involved. Just because of that fact, it is something that can promote the legal certainty of everyone.

It is in no way intended to ease the law so that weapons can be purchased more easily. on the contrary. I think the hearing will also light you a light, in the sense that a sports shooter license and a hunting leave are matters that are regulated at community level and that these are legitimate reasons to purchase a weapon.

I think the hearings will give you a lot of clarification.

You can reply briefly, Mr. Van Hecke.

Mr. Speaker, first, if it is only a few corrections that need to be made, we ask ourselves why a deadline up to 31 October 2008, more than one year, should be provided? That makes us think that there will be some more profound corrections.

Secondly, in the reasoning of the proposal that is presented, it was pointed out that the governors would be overloaded and would be difficult to handle the work. Well, when we asked for advice, as a committee, the Governor of Brussels, who had consulted his colleagues, said that it is not necessary to extend the deadline as long as there are only a few corrections to be made and that an extension is only necessary if there are substantial changes to be made.

I think that the fact that such a long term is proposed here indicates that it is ultimately the intention to really move to a relief.

However, it is the logic itself that if small changes are needed, it is not necessary to extend the deadline. This is about the passive gun owner. Do you not think that if he comes into a situation in which he will have a legitimate reason for obtaining a permit for that weapon possession, he is therefore entitled to a transitional period of several months, like the people who now have a weapon in their possession and for a certain period had the right to declare it? It is no more than logical, that response of the police services. Of course, it is very easy to distort all the words from a certain view, but yet that is the essence and the logic behind it. I therefore refuse to participate in your story and frame it in illegality and relief in order to obtain a permit. No, it is just a correction on the ground.

Can we leave it here? Then the word is to Mr. Schoofs.

First of all, I would like to thank Mrs. Van der Auwera for her detailed report on the work of the committees.

In any case, the Flemish Interest is in favour of what almost all the factions, and ⁇ together with us all the major factions, agree on in the House, in particular the adjustment of the weapons law approved during the previous legislature, which imposes itself. Unfortunately, under the pressure of very dramatic circumstances, it was too hasty to act at that time, and this caused the Parliament at that time to stumble.

We are therefore pleased that in this legislature one wishes to give absolute priority to the dossier, which concerns thousands of legal subjects and many of whom may have felt justified in the last one and a half years, and are also in a state of sometimes overwhelming legal uncertainty. Furthermore, once the file has been seized, it will hopefully show that Parliament, if necessary, even without the intervention and ⁇ without the authority, control and intervention of a government, can deliver very decent, if not even better legislative work.

Opvallend is alleszins – in dit is een eerste frappante vaststelling uit de commission – welk een bocht of PS hier in het dossier in no time weet te maken: tot in het absurde toe onverzettelijk in het regeringspluche om de nieuwe wet ook maar enigszins te wijzigen, schaamde zij er zich vanop de minstens al virtuele oppositiebanken niet voor om in deze prille nieuwe legislatuur het eigen wetsvoorstel als basistekst voor te dragen. It must be done, colleague Frédéric!

In any case, today is taken a first step in the amendment of the Arms Act of 8 June 2006 by extending the deadlines within which the legal obligations must or must be fulfilled, to 31 October 2008. We then submitted an amendment in the committee aimed at ⁇ ining the extension until 31 December 2008, but in the final vote we did not object to the held date of 31 October.

In this, we also thank the MR for bringing attention to our amendment in a press release – ⁇ unwittingly. There is a Flemish proverb, colleagues of the MR, which reads: “Al ⁇ the lie is still so fast, the truth gets it.”

Meanwhile, in response to the questions raised by various actors about our position, we can convince everyone that the Flemish Interest as the only party ⁇ ined the deadline for postponement, as also by some members of the National Advisory Council of the Weapons. The MR’s attempt to inspire the Flemish Belang a weak attitude has thus failed.

We can ⁇ find ourselves on the date of 31 October 2008, because the political will and the parliamentary drive are clearly present in almost all political groups in order to deliver properly legislative work in this important social dossier with the necessary urgency, but this time not in a hurry. For example, all hearings will normally have already taken place within one month, counting from today. The Flemish Interest therefore agrees that the delay is granted precisely to make the necessary legislative changes and not merely as an extension for the extension itself. We have never been in favour of that.

Furthermore, the extension of the period for the purpose of amending the law was rightly advocated during the hearing in the Committee for Justice by the Chairman of the National Advisory Council for Weapons and, on such behalf, by virtually all members of the aforementioned body, chaired by Mr. Ide. This, of course, does not prevent us from remaining vigilant and from continuing to target the date of 31 October 2008 with special attention, namely in the light of the progress that will be made or not made in the processing of the bills.

Chairman, colleagues, through the approval of the present bill concerning the statutory term, we now formally ensure the respect of the principle of legal certainty, contrary to what the colleagues from Green! Ecolo has been claimed here. Legal certainty is an absolute minimum guarantee within a rule of law. Ultimately, it will need to be supplemented by a text that regulates the possession and use of weapons, in particular firearms, in a balanced and effective manner, in respect of the principles of justice and fairness with regard to the thousands of honourable and well-meaning citizens who have consciously criminalized themselves in their favourite hobby or leisure of hunter, sports shooter, collector and so forth over the past one and a half years.

In all quietness and serenity, then hopefully a law will be able to be established that responds to the legitimate aspirations of the terrain.

Since the entry into force of the law of 8 June 2006 regulating economic and individual activities with weapons, it must be observed that the objective pursued, namely to remove weapons from clandestinity, has not been achieved.

The causes of this failure are, of course, multiple. The most flagrant results from the excessive rigour of the law and the deficiencies in its execution. It is now estimated that approximately 200,000 weapons have been declared out of the 800,000 which is the estimated number of weapons in Belgium.

It appears from information that we have been able to obtain that the departments of governors, police offices, etc. They were poorly equipped and did not yet have all the circularies and arrests necessary for the enforcement of the law. The central register of weapons itself is still undergoing reorganization. Finally, the Arms Advisory Council was only recently established and was only very few to meet when it was supposed to give its opinion on the implementation and activation of the law.

The working group responsible for the assessment of the law of 8 June 2006 regulating economic and individual activities with weapons had made these findings at the end of 2006. The resolution adopted following the work of this group expressly invited the Minister of Justice to consider the need to extend the provisional and transitional period in view of the considerable difficulties encountered in the application of the law.

It should be noted that during the preparatory work, the Minister of Justice said she was not convinced of the opportunity to extend again the law, the transition period and the amnesty period. She did not know what would justify her. The Minister did not express his willingness to extend this period until the end of June, of course too late!

For the various reasons I have just explained, the MR group considered it appropriate to extend the transition period for the declaration of weapons holding.

This position is not new. In the previous legislature, my colleague, Philippe Monfils, submitted a bill that goes in exactly the same direction. However, it could not be adopted in the Justice Committee because the required quorum was not reached. Who is responsible, Frédéric? The MPs PS members of the Justice Committee who were there to vote on all the provisions examined in the committee and who urged, on instruction, to leave the session while this proposal was about to be discussed. In doing so, they did not allow this transitional period to be extended before the 30 June deadline.

If these MPs had taken a responsible attitude, a considerable number of honest citizens would have been able to keep their weapons in full legality, the time to make the necessary changes to the 2006 law.

During the election campaign leading to the federal elections, the PS candidates, whom we have met repeatedly in debates, have continued to justify the relevance of the law in its slightest details and to make themselves strong to keep it in an extreme approach that we have always denounced.

Today, the PS group tries to redeem a conduct; it tries to give the image of the defender of gunholders, hunters and sports shooters while he has been their worst opponent. The PS tried to make these people believe that the MR group was trying to block today the adoption of the text that is on our banks because I was asking for the opinion of the Advisory Council and because some of its members had confided that the postponement to 31 December 2007, or even 31 March 2008 was insufficient.

The PM was surprised by our attitude. He made this known in writing, believing that our request to consult the field actors represented in the Advisory Board was only a pretext.

In the letters addressed to these citizens, Mr. Frédéric, the PS recognizes that the Arms Advisory Council must be associated with the reflection on the substantial changes to be made to the law. However, it says that the extension of the transition period must be voted immediately, all cases ceasing, without waiting for the following week, to end the legal uncertainty that many gunholders are victims of.

Why did the PS MPs not vote on the bill filed in November 2006 by Philippe Monfils and Denis Ducarme? Why did they prefer to march and leave the session of the Justice Committee? In doing so, they prevented ending the legal uncertainty of gunholders.

The PS criticizes us for having requested the opinion of the Arms Advisory Council. Remember, however, that this opinion was to be transmitted to the committee for the next session with regard to the deadline, a one-week deadline that was respected. The delay charged to Mr. was therefore only one week. I note that the attitude of MPs at the end of the last legislature resulted in a delay of more than five months.

Dear colleagues PS, the citizens to whom you have addressed these emails are not fools and their testimonies flow in this direction. They know that the law of 2006 is a law drafted and defended by the PS, voted at the end of a debate broken by your will and transposed in precipitation without taking the indispensable decisions.

Dear PS colleagues, this excessive law sticks to your party like a chewing gum to a shoe! You have to make big gestures to remove a small piece of it, but there will always be a good part of it so embedded that you will not be able to get rid of it whatever you do.

The MR Group took its responsibilities and proposed, together with all colleagues in the Commission, to extend the period of declaration of possession of weapons until 31 October 2008. This period will be used to review the law in consultation with the field actors.

Solutions will need to be made to the difficulties faced by people who have received a weapon, for example, by inheritance, or even sports hunters and shooters who will decide to cease the practice of their hobby. It will also be a sharp revision to the lower, in particular, the fees to be paid by gunholders.

But we will address these questions in the coming weeks. Today, we address simply the question of the report to 31 October 2008. You subsequently leave to each the care of contributing his arguments and commission of the Justice to elaborate a text in the interest of balancing the security and of arms holders. (Applause of Applause)

Open Vld supports the logic of extending the transitional provisions or the amnesty period until 31 October 2008. Why, fellow Green!, until 31 October 2008? You have called that a long period. Well, because it is exactly the period that was proposed in the Justice Committee by Mr. Ide, the chairman of the Advisory Council for Weapons. He told us that he questioned his authorities and that the common shareholder was a period of one year. Therefore, we support an extension of the amnesty period until 31 October 2008.

I would like to emphasize once again that this is also not the final solution or solution to Open Vld. In fact, this law constitutes only an additional transitional period, pending a more fundamental adjustment of the Arms Law, based on the legal and practical problems experienced on the ground. In my turn, I also refer to the hearings we will hold in the Justice Committee from next week. We will spend a full day on Wednesday next week.

If you allow me, I will look back to the previous legislature. Within the weapons working group, Open Vld has already shown itself in favour of an extension of the amnesty period, to arrange for the dissolution of the chambers. This request was included in the Working Group Resolution of 8 March 2007. Under point 10, one can read: “...the Minister of Justice request to examine the need for a grant of the term.” What did Minister Onkelinx answer? She was there, I quote the report of 5 April 2007, “not convinced that it is appropriate to extend the transition and amnesty period again.” The Minister of Justice was not convinced. Collega Bellot of the MR has already said it, therefore during the previous legislature there was no extension and since 1 July 2007 the problem arose that, first, the amnesty period had ended, second, from the application of the law various problems appeared in the field and, third, a period of legal uncertainty arose.

With this amended bill, this uncertainty has now been removed. With our dual trail – on the one hand, the extension of the transitional arrangement and on the other hand, the repair law which must be implemented urgently but carefully – we also meet the majority of the bodies in the field, as evidenced by the exchange of views with Mr Ide, Chairman of the Advisory Board, on 3 October last. Mr. Ide has made it clear to us that no extension could come without a repair law.

In conclusion, I can say the following. For Open Vld, a good weapons legislation, and consequently an adjustment thereof, requires a three-fold drive. First, get as many weapons out of the illegality as possible. Second, make people even more aware of the potential danger of weapons, from the point of view of security. Third, show rationality in relation to the real gun lover who is always okay with everything. It is important to find a good balance between these three drivers.

Open Vld will therefore approve the amended bill.

First of all, I would like to thank Mrs. Van der Auwera for the quality of her report.

Far from us is the idea of challenging the noble motivations of our Assembly when, almost unanimously, it had voted the new weapons legislation. The vote of this law was intended to be a response to the disgraceful and racist facts of which a young man in Antwerp had become guilty, in his deadly hiking.

Since its hasty vote and its entry into force, this law has, however, raised questions and misunderstandings and created many problems whose scale had not been previously measured and whose colleagues have drawn up a fairly comprehensive picture.

The CDH will vote on the proposal extending the reporting period because it is the first and indispensable step towards a revision of the law. We want a quick review because we need to restore the shaken confidence of our fellow citizens. An examination that we desire quickly but not hastily because it is with serenity, calm and out of the intrigisms of all sides that it is necessary to correct the law. At no time can this review lose sight of its primary goal: that the hundreds of thousands of weapons circulating in our country are not used to kill our fellow citizens. Everything that goes wrong in this direction and everything that is unnecessary to ⁇ this goal must be corrected. Everything that contributes to the fight against crime must be emphasized and reinforced.

We must be able to fight against crime but also against bloodshed. This week again, in Hainaut province, in Feluy, an elderly person, overstated by young people, took out his hunting rifle and shot his young neighbor on the sidewalk. It is against these things that we want to fight! It is against these facts that the law must provide answers!

After the hearings, other proposals, beyond this gun law, should also come to light. I think the majority of parties agree on the big drives of this law.

It is not for us to soften the law to respond to the various lobbies in a political concern. It is not for us to take unnecessarily disproportionate measures. It is not for us to know who of the PS or MR is right or who will recover the votes of the hunters or the shooters.

It is not for us to register in the oratory joutes that you have offered us for more than an hour! We were comfortable, we were in the opposition. Like you, we voted for this law. We must now assume it and we assume it. We assume it, as a mistake ⁇ , but we voted for it.

(Brouhaha) by

We assume this law, but we must also assume, all collectively, our duty to correct it today. I thank you.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, when I see the quality of some laws of the last legislature, such as this weapons law, I ask myself serious questions. All parties are responsible for this. During the last parliamentary period, the Parliament has yet to put a number of measures into legislative texts that no one can be proud of. Like the previous bill we saw, the current bill to extend the regularization period for the Arms Law is nothing more than overlay.

But well, List Dedecker will support the proposal, as if it were just to capture the frustrations in the population. It is, by the way, a first correction of a substantially and technically weak law, and I fear that it is not the last one that we are presented here.

The approach of the weapons law – the rental law is also one that we will get here – is overwhelming in this regard. Of course everyone wants a safer society and of course the philosophy behind this weapons law is founded but therefore bonafide weapons owners such as hunters, sports shooters and collectors hunt the stunts on the body is unheard of. Some of them have been intimidated in writing and even physically, while the net is those weapons owners who all benefit from keeping clowns and fools away from weapons. These responsible people want nothing more than a closing gun law so that they can continue their hobby without being stigmatized as potential murderers.

Heavily, the law and the circular letters have prompted the governors and the police services to undertake actions that most likely will no longer be needed in future legislation and that were almost ⁇ targeted at the wrong target groups. I think here, for example, of weapons stored as heritage items or of expensive collectible objects. Some of those pieces, by the way, have been picked up and nobody really knows exactly what happened to them.

But what has happened concretely and proactively about real risk owners of weapons? Because there is the problem, Mr. Van Hecke, not with the bonafide sports clubs.

What also disturbs me, in addition to the frustration of the population, is the ease with which the administration and the executive power are charged with meaningless actions that now need to be reversed in seven hurry, and that meaningful actions that are not carried out because of supposed lack of time. In the walkway, this is called a lack of resources. I call it: Dusted Pillow.

The key point is that this Assembly must at once deliver correct and conclusive legislative work in order to prevent this kind of absurd and bizarre situations. No half work. For how credible is this Chamber when the population is faced again and again with laws that are reversed, that must be removed as unconstitutional according to the Constitutional Court, or that are simply contradictory?

So let us improve that weapons law so that it is used for what it should serve, without demagogy towards bonafide groups.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, as a group of List Dedecker, we will not only monitor this, but from the opposition we also want to cooperate to improve the quality of administration, as colleague De Maght just cited as an example. What is good, we will support, and what is bad, we will unremittingly reject. I must conclude that delaying and updating is the only right way. (Applause of Applause)

This was the speech of Mr. Van de Velde.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak briefly on this weapons law. I do not fully understand what is happening here. If something is unanimously approved in a government, then it is not appropriate to shoot one another after another, to use that word, on the contrary. We will not get involved in this controversy.

In the present bill, we believe that there are a number of technical, procedural elements, on the one hand, and a number of substantive elements, on the other.

As I said earlier, we approved this law, in agreement with the parties that then formed part of the government. You will see me either personally or from the Sp.A. here now stepping into the parties that were with us in the government at the time.

Then we must dare to look at ourselves, even when we are in the opposition. We do not have the habit of changing our minds in three months. We must admit that the period that was then, I repeat it, unanimously approved by the parties that were in government at the time may have been too short.

Let me pay a little attention to the last speaker.

It is based on Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde.

In addition to the first two procedural reasons, we still have two other reasons to determine our voting behavior. That means, of course, that we are doing something very strange in Parliament now. Of course, we can’t argue that there is still no government, but ultimately we are going to correct something that has already been three or four months away.

I think this is also a unicum for this Parliament. This is very strange in terms of procedure.

Those who obeyed the law and, in other words, made sure that they were in order within the timing, are actually punished today. Those who did good will be punished and those who did not do good will be rewarded. These are some procedural reasons that I would like to point out.

I would also like to point out a few substantive reasons. We have no problem with discussing this issue in essence. We also have no problem with it if tomorrow it turns out that technical and legal improvements should be made. However, we have a bit of the impression that here now a law is being passed extending the term, while there are actually other intentions. These other intentions are noted in the bills that have come from certain political parties, not to mention the MR who, being part of the government, has approved this law.

If we now read the texts of the agreements – in so far as there are already agreements – we find that there is subcutaneous – and ⁇ even very clearly – again an easing of the weapons law. We cannot agree with it anyway. The figures show – I am not going to read the tables here – that in countries where there are fewer weapons than in our country – for example the Netherlands – there are also fewer incidents with weapons. I think it is a firm fact that possession of weapons in any case gives rise to certain facts.

The conclusion of the whole story is that the sp.a will abstain in this matter. First, because of the procedural reason that I think clearly outlined it. Secondly, and above all, because we think that the new ruling parties, which are likely to form a government in the coming weeks, months or years, actually have different intentions with what will be voted today.