http://archive.is/fCNez
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spain-far-right-vox-santiago-abascal-looser-gun-laws-legitimate-defense-clause/
>Madrid – The leader of Spain's far-right Vox party has said it should be much easier for law-abiding Spaniards to own firearms for self-defense, and use them for that purpose without legal consequences. In an interview published Wednesday by a website specializing in weapons, Santiago Abascal said that "the concept of legitimate defense needs to be widened" in Spain.
>Abascal is Vox's candidate in the upcoming general election on April 28. He has bragged in the past about carrying a handgun himself because his family was for years a target of the Basque militant group ETA.
>Under Spain's current law, that threat qualified Abascal for a firearms license which most of the nation's residents can't get.
>Guns ownership is tightly regulated in Spain. According to the U.S. Library of Congress, firearms licences for personal security are only granted to those "who can prove that a real danger to their security exists." All fully automatic weapons are "strictly forbidden to civilians," as they are in the U.S. and most other Western nations.
>Abascal, the 42-year-old leader of a party that only came into existence in 2013 and has yet to get a member elected to the nation's congress or the European Parliament, said the laws should be eased.
>"We need an urgent radical change in the law, not only so that the Spaniards without criminal records and in full use of their mental faculties can keep a weapon in their house… But so that they can use it in real life-threatening situations without fear of facing a judicial nightmare, prison sentences or even the prospect of having to pay compensation to the relatives of criminals who assaulted them," he told the "armas.es" website.
>Official statistics show that Spain's rates of homicide and burglary are lower than most of its European neighbors.
>Similar changes to those Abascal's party is pushing from the fringes of Spanish politics have are also being espoused by his European neighbors in Italy, but the Italian right-wing has already risen to power, and is getting the changes into the books.
>As CBS News reported last week, Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini and his League party, which became part of a coalition government in 2018, has already eased restrictions on how many firearms – including assault-style weapons like the AR-15 – Italians can own, and the size of magazines permitted.
>The government is also currently supporting a "legitimate defense" bill that would, among other things, decrease penalties for Italians who kill someone perceived to be a threat in their own home.
>Abascal's Vox party has thus far only got a handful of politicians elected to a regional legislature in the country's south. However, party membership jumped significantly in 2017 after a terror attack in Barcelona, and his stance on firearms is clearly aimed at framing the Vox party as tough on security ahead of the April elections.
GOOD LUCK, SPAIN