Self-Defence Weapons Sales Surge in Paris Ahead of Anticipated ‘Act II’ Riots on Saturday
Firearms dealers in Paris have reported a massive surge in sales of non-lethal deterrents, including high-powered pepper spray guns, as shopkeepers reportedly stock up on telescopic batons, baseball bats, and iron bars ahead of anticipated trouble on Saturday.
Protests turned to rioting and widespread looting in several French cities last weekend, with the government now accepting it moved too slowly and allowed police to lose control of the streets in some areas. With faith in the state to protect private property at a new low, sales of defensive items are surging ahead of “act II” protests promised for Saturday in Paris and other cities.
City newspaper Le Parisien states shopkeepers in the Ile-de-France are arming themselves ahead of feared violence and more looting, with the president of the National Trade Association of Gunsmiths telling the publication: “Everyone feels they could be looted—and, more importantly, shopkeepers feel that the police haven’t protected them. They want to defend themselves rather than being looted ten times over.”
The association said it was advising its members to remain “upstanding, law-abiding citizens” but added that, ultimately, “If the police don’t restore order, we’re going to have a problem”.
Comparing the rush on defensive items at its members’ stores to the demand for air conditioning units this last sweltering summer, the association spokesman said: “It’s the same story at every gun shop—there’s going to be no stock left.”
The telephone is said to be ringing off the hook in central-Paris gun shops where customers are seeking out legal, no-licence-required defensive items like pepper spray, pistols that fire rubber balls with compressed gas, and tear-gas projectors.
Other popular items include the ‘JPX’ — a four-shot pistol loaded with cartridges of irritant and compressed air — with a sales sheet declaring: “The JPX6 magazine contains 4 pepper rounds. Each round contains approximately 10 grams of a very dense Oleoresin Capsicum blend… an extract of cayenne pepper that in the patented PIEXOL blend has a stinging capacity measured at 400 thousand SHU on the Scoville scale, one of the most powerful on the market today.”
Another Paris gun store owner cited by the paper said their sales were up tenfold and that shopkeepers are feeling “traumatised”.
Owning actual weapons for self-defence is absolutely illegal, but reports state some shopkeepers are willing to take the risk, even with the simplest of weapons. The paper cites the remarks of one shopkeeper who acquired an iron bar as a last-ditch anti-looting device, who said: “People are going to end up dead, and we are going to defend ourselves… Because enough is enough. We’ve warned everyone.”
Germany’s Die Welt newspaper notes the President of the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI), Alain Di Crescenzo, said of the mood among French business owners: “People are exhausted, shop owners are arming themselves”, and that shopkeepers feel “a twofold fear: fear for one’s economic survival and fear for one’s physical safety”.
Such surges in demand for simple self-defence and non-lethal deterrent items like pepper spray in Europe’s disarmed societies where firearms licenses are generally rare and exclude self-defence as a legitimate reason for ownership are frequently tied to attacks on indigenes and world events. Paris gunsmiths record similar demand after the massive November 2015 terror attacks in the city, and after the October 7th attacks in Israel.
Breitbart London also reported identical developments in Germany a decade ago, in 2016. After the mass migrant rapes on young women in the city of Cologne on the first night of that year gun shops in that city reported massive demand. As reported then:
Shops selling self defence products have seen an run on their stores. German gun-shop owner Katja Triebel told Breitbart London “the sale of pepper spray has risen, as has sales of blank firing guns which can be loaded with pepper spray cartridges and other paralysers. “Other means of self defence are prohibited for ordinary citizens in Germany.” The pepper-spray guns are illegal in the United Kingdom but are freely available in Germany and can be bought without a licence. Ms. Triebel said her regular customers had also reported a sudden surge of interest among their friends and colleagues in visiting a firearms range to try out shooting. “We are completely sold out. We sold our last pepper spray on Wednesday. We order new supplies every day, but we always exceed the supply… mostly it is women demanding the products. They buy them for themselves, or for their daughters or girlfriends.”
The following month, gun shops in another German town, Flensburg on the Danish border, saw the same. As reported in the Migrant Crisis Livewire:
While a city spokesman would not comment on why demand was rising, the gun shop owner interviewed by Flensburger Tageblatt confirmed from speaking to his customers they were afraid of being robbed, of their children “being the victims of abuse”. “After the recent incidents, many concerned parents come to us to equip their daughters”, he said. Even a police officer had come to buy pepper spray for his wife and daughter. Officially local police condemned the trade, remarking that people preparing to defend themselves would cause others to be provoked.
In 2019, Breitbart News reported that pepper spray sales were up in Sweden as the country experienced a surging crime wave.
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