Kazakh Majilis OKs EAEU gun control draft law

"The heads of the Eurasian Economic Union Member States governments signed the Agreement in Yerevan on May 20, 2016. The Agreement is binding on the legal entities and individuals engaged in traffic, import, export and internal transit of law-enforcement and civilian weapons for the purposes of sale, participation in sporting events, hunting, exhibiting, testing, repairing or replacing major parts of weapons, and also in case of weapon owner's relocation to another state for permanent residence. This document provides the following: the mandatory licensing procedure based on a single document in the form approved by the Eurasian Economic Commission; the consolidated list of the civilian and duty weapons banned and restricted for mutual trade trafficking for all EAEU member states; cooperation of the authorized agencies of the EAEU member states, including for exchange of information on issued permits. The Agreement ratification will allow the EAEU member states' authorized agencies to timely exercise full control over duty and civilian weapons," said First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan Marat Demeuov, presenting the bill.

The spokesman emphasized that the Agreement was concluded on behalf of the governments of the sides and is not subject to transfer of any competence to the supranational body - the Eurasian Economic Commission. The vice-minister also answered the deputies' questions. In particular, he says that, according to our country's legislation, no foreigners can import more than two units of arms in Kazakhstan within 10 years.

The agreement regulates the traffic of weapons of cultural value - at the request of the Russian side. The persons who go hunting to one of the four countries must obtain permit in advance for importing the weapon into that country, and notify the territorial authorities 10 days prior to departure with the enclosed documents that would be the ground for the departure. Once the Agreement enters into force, the time for issuance of permitting documents is 15 days. A service or civilian weapon, imported into the country under the Agreement, shall be returned to the country it was imported from. In the event of loss, the owner must write an application to the territorial authorities of the country where the weapon was imported, so that to register it.