The communists proposed weapons restrictions for foreigners and “new Russians”

State Duma deputies from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation on Monday introduced two bills with amendments to weapons legislation into the lower house. The communists propose to abolish the already seriously limited right of foreigners to purchase weapons, and to obligatory require military registration documents from “new Russians” who want to arm themselves. Experts, however, do not consider these initiatives to be relevant, despite the serious resonance around topics related to migrants and public safety.

Two bills amending the federal law “On Weapons,” submitted to the State Duma on April 15 by communists Mikhail Matveev and Sergei Obukhov, relate to the circulation of weapons among foreign and newly acquired Russian citizens. Issues of preventing offenses in the field of weapons trafficking by visitors are currently of “extreme relevance and exceptional public importance,” the authors emphasize in the explanatory notes to the initiatives, citing, among other things, that “the number of cases of the use of weapons among foreign citizens is still remains high.”

The first bill provides for the introduction of a ban on the purchase of weapons by foreign citizens. Deputies remind that foreigners are now given the right to purchase civilian weapons in Russia “under licenses issued by internal affairs bodies on the basis of requests from diplomatic missions of foreign states in the Russian Federation,” subject to their removal within ten days. However, according to the communists, it is impossible to collect “complete and reliable information” about the fulfillment by foreigners of these requirements for the acquisition of weapons. Therefore, the bill proposes to exclude from the relevant law provisions on the right of foreign citizens to buy weapons on the territory of the Russian Federation. Along the way, the authors consider it necessary to prohibit the import of weapons by foreigners into the Russian Federation, which is also regulated by several articles of the law.

With their second initiative, members of the Communist Party faction propose to enshrine in law the grounds for refusing to issue licenses to obtain weapons to citizens of the Russian Federation who have not provided the competent authorities with documents on military registration at their place of residence or place of stay. However, the legislators also placed emphasis in the explanatory note on migrants: “Currently, the situation is that migrants, immediately after receiving Russian citizenship, apply for a weapons permit without special restrictions, while often these persons do not register with the military at their place of residence or place stay. A fair question arises: why were the weapons needed?”

Note that Mikhail Matveev introduced a similar bill to the State Duma in the fall of 2023. That initiative envisaged a complete ban on the purchase of weapons for ten years from the date of obtaining Russian citizenship and at the same time a refusal to issue weapons licenses to citizens who did not submit military registration documents. The government did not support these amendments, and the Duma rejected the initiative in the first reading in February 2024.

Experts interviewed by Kommersant also doubt the relevance of new “weapons” initiatives. According to lawyer Sergei Kolosovsky, posing the problem in this form looks far-fetched. “The existing system for issuing weapons permits contains enough filters for persons who have recently received citizenship, have poor command of the Russian language and are generally dubious,” explains the lawyer. “For example, a person who does not speak Russian well will simply not pass the test: there are 90 questions in Russian.” . The number of crimes among “new Russians” may be growing, the expert admits, but this is due to a general increase in the number of people who have recently obtained citizenship. “And what kind of weapons are used there? If this separation is carried out, it turns out that we are talking about weapons that are illegally owned. Accordingly, the issue of legal possession of weapons has nothing to do with this situation,” emphasizes Mr. Kolosovsky.

Security expert Sergei Khrapach also opposes the tightening of relevant legislation: “The statistics published by the Ministry of Internal Affairs on crimes committed by migrants using weapons do not indicate that this is a problem that needs to be addressed right now, since mainly these crimes are of a domestic nature.” Non-citizens with criminal intent, if necessary, will get themselves everything they need on the illegal market, and “if there is no intent, then any shovel, club, ax or stick can become the same weapon with no less terrible consequences,” the expert points out. Following the logic of the deputies, he fears, “one could reach the point of absurdity” by banning the sale of kitchen knives or cars to migrants: the end result (that is, the protection of citizens) will not be achieved, and law-abiding people will be harmed. “All this will not have any real effect on the crime situation, neither in ordinary crime, nor even more so in crime associated with terrorist acts,” Mr. Khrapach is sure. “No statistics confirm that such measures need to be taken.”

Grigory Leiba