TOULOUSE SHOOTING: WHO OWNS 11.43mm GUNS?
March 19, 2012
A .45 caliber pistol (11.43 mm in French), REUTERS
The ballistic analyses performed at the scene of the shooting of Toulouse, Monday, March 19, "formally establish that one of weapons used (class 11.43) [...] is the same that was used in Montauban last Thursday and Sunday" reports radio station Europe 1.
Earlier in the morning, police sources quoted by AFP already explained that one of the two weapons used by the killer was the same caliber as that used in the murders of paratroopers. Who owns a semi-automatic, 11.43mm caliber pistol in France?
Marksmen or people who acquired the weapon illegally. The 11.43mm semi-automatic pistol is a handgun that may belong to the 1st or the 4th legal category, and thus subject to authorization. "11.43" means the size of ammunition, 11.43 millimeters, therefore, a little larger than a centimeter in diameter. In the United States, we speak of a .45 caliber (45/100 of an inch). That's a big gun, a semiautomatic pistol adopted by the U.S. Army in 1911 but now out of fashion: it is no longer used by the army (except in some elite units) or the police, which is equipped with 9 mm caliber weapons.
There is an estimated two million (legally obtained) firearm owners in France, but it is impossible to know how many guns are circulating in the country. Handguns have a lifetime of fifty years or more, many weapons present in the area have been purchased or imported before strict rules and records went in place. The Agrippa file that lists all weapon owners dates only from 2007.
Estimates of the total number of firearms, both legal and illegal, vary between 10 and 20 million. The regulation is rather strict in France, and the only people who can legally possess are marksmen, who are about 140,000 licensees of the French Federation of Shooting ("Fédération française de tir", aka FFTir), hunters, who are 1.3 million, collectors and people who need them for their work (police, "gendarmerie", cash transportation, security agents).
Among them, target shooters are those most likely to have a 11.43 caliber pistol: hunters tend to have longer shotguns, 'gendarmes' and policemen do not use this caliber in their trade and collectors rather own beautiful old weapons, which are sometimes nonfunctional.
Difficult to obtain a permit
Among marksmen, however, the 11.43 caliber is quite common, according to practitioners and corresponds to weapons fun to shoot, that don't fire "violently" and are rather accurate. But obtaining a permit of possession for a marksman is particularly regulated.
One must first be licensed to FFTir, be part of a club recognized by the federation and have a book showing the date of three controlled, yearly shooting sessions which are spread across several months. Then you have a preliminary notice issued by the FFTir saying the person is fit to practice before filing the application for authorization to the police or gendarmerie.
The police will then investigate on each applicant, checking for example a medical certificate if the person is not on the list of prohibited firearms, or those under guardianship. It is the prefecture (local jurisdiction) which has the final decision on the permit, which must be renewed every three years and can be removed after certain offenses, including driving offenses.
The permit of possession of firearms should not be confused with the carrying of weapons, which is prohibited, except for professional reasons (policemen, gendarmes, etc.) Marksmen can carry their weapon, but it is heavily regulated: it must be unusable (disassembled, separated from its ammunition, with a security device or in a closed briefcase). Firearms and ammunition must be kept in safes or in fortified cabinets.
Illegal detention
Other people likely to have a 11.43 caliber pistol are those who obtained them illegally. Like the Kalashnikov rifle, semi-automatic pistols circulate in the middle of crime and banditry, mainly to protect all forms of trafficking. The 11.43 caliber pistol is sometimes described as "rogue's weapon" because it was used in a number of criminal cases, including the United States in 1930 and France in the 1950s.
But its presence in the worlds of crime can be explained simply by the fact that it is one of the most widely manufactured handguns in the world during the twentieth century: three million copies are reported made.
The 11.43 mm pistols circulating illegally in France come largely - like the Kalashnikov - from countries of the former Yugoslavia. A motivated person can easily optain a firearm. The National Assembly recently passed a law to simplify the control of weapons including firearms adopting the European system of four categories of weapons instead of the current eight. It also provides for tougher penalties, multiplied by three to four, for illegal possession.
Richard Durn, the author of the massacre at Nanterre in 2002, was a marksman and had bought several guns legally, but his situation was illegal when he acted out. He had not renewed his authorization of detention, and no control over his high caliber guns had been made by the prefecture of the Hauts de Seine, in charge of supervising.