A father and his three sons reportedly traveled to the village of Karaali, and after announcing that they had come from a neighboring village, the father and at least one of his sons opened fire on a group of farmers. Six people were killed and seven injured in the incident. According to a report from Turkish gun control advocacy group the Umut (Hope) Foundation, which publishes regular reports intended to draw attention to the dangers represented by armed individuals, there are over 9 million firearms in Turkey and an average of 3,000 people are killed by bullets from these weapons each year.The Umut Foundation also presented the following information about guns in Turkey:
-- There are firearms in 6 percent of the 8 million vehicles actively navigating through traffic on Turkish streets. Eighty percent of these are loaded.
-- In recent years, there has been a 57 percent increase in firearm usage. Licensed firearms are also widely used to commit crimes.
-- In 2007, 4,196 official autopsies were performed in İstanbul; of these, 12 percent listed injury from a firearm as the cause of death (503 people). Twenty-six of these were children. Of these victims, 90 percent (452 people) were killed with handguns and short and long-range cartridge-firing weapons, while 10 percent (51 people) were killed with hunting rifles.
The Umut Foundation called for serious changes to Turkey's current gun control legislation, asserting that existing laws are outdated and inadequate. The foundation wants gun ownership to be made more difficult and for changes to be made to the procedures for gun destruction in the event of crime.
