Polish President Karol Nawrocki has called for a national debate on “responsible access to firearms”, arguing that Poland should discuss whether its citizens should have wider access to guns as part of the country’s approach to security.
Speaking at the opening of a new sports shooting range in Boguty-Pianki in the Mazowieckie region on Friday, Nawrocki said attitudes towards civilian gun ownership differed considerably across the transatlantic world.
He contrasted the United States, where the right to keep and bear arms is constitutionally protected, with what he described as a much more restrictive approach in the European Union.
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“But even in the European Union, Poland remains at the very end,” Nawrocki said, before calling for a public discussion about access to firearms.
The president cited estimates that around 1% of Poles have access to firearms and know how to use them, comparing this with higher proportions in countries including the Czech Republic, Austria, Finland and Switzerland.
Those international comparisons were made by Nawrocki himself. Official Polish firearms statistics require some caution: a recent audit by Poland’s Supreme Audit Office (NIK) found that police data had historically counted permits rather than unique individuals, meaning a person holding permits for several purposes could appear more than once in the statistics.
Nawrocki said he was himself among Polish firearms users and had completed the country’s official procedure for obtaining access to a weapon.
“I went through the entire official procedure for access to firearms,” he said.
He stopped short, however, of proposing a particular change to Poland’s gun laws.
No bill, draft legislation or specific new licensing regime was announced during the speech. Instead, Nawrocki said he wanted the opening of the shooting range to prompt a broader public discussion.
“I am convinced that we must undertake a public discussion about responsible access to firearms in the Republic of Poland,” he said.
The distinction is significant. As president, Nawrocki has the constitutional power to submit legislation to parliament, but Friday’s intervention was a call for debate rather than the presentation of a presidential legislative initiative.
Poland currently regulates civilian firearms primarily through the Act on Weapons and Ammunition. Permits can be issued for specified purposes, including personal protection, hunting, sport, historical reconstruction, collecting and training.
The system involves formal licensing and registration requirements, with the police playing a central role in firearms permit proceedings. After purchasing a firearm under a permit, its owner is also required to register it.
The number of legally registered firearms has nevertheless increased substantially in recent years.
According to figures examined by the NIK, the number of valid firearms permits recorded by police increased from 234,916 in 2020 to 367,411 in 2024. Over the same period, the number of firearms registered to individuals rose from 587,853 to 930,121.
The NIK cautioned that the permit total should not be interpreted as the number of individual gun owners because one person can hold more than one permit.
Nawrocki placed his argument within a wider discussion about Poland’s preparedness and ability to deter potential threats.
He had returned from the UN General Assembly in New York, where international security was a major subject of discussion, and argued that security depended not only on diplomacy but also on the ability to deter those threatening a country’s independence.
At home, he divided security into national, international and local dimensions, pointing to defence spending, Poland’s armed forces, its defence industry and local preparedness.
The new shooting range in Boguty-Pianki cost more than PLN 8 million, has six shooting positions and allows shooting at distances between seven and 100 metres. It is intended for use by local military units, uniformed-class students and residents.
Nawrocki also stressed that simply possessing a weapon was not in itself a guarantee of safety.
“A weapon alone does not provide security,” he said, arguing that security depended on a trained and responsible person capable of using it.
His intervention therefore places civilian firearms access onto the national policy agenda without yet defining what, if anything, he wants changed in the law.
Whether the Presidential Chancellery follows the speech with a concrete proposal to amend Poland’s firearms regime remains to be seen.
