Poland’s opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party has announced consultations on the country’s firearms rules, including talks with hunters, following President Karol Nawrocki’s call for a broader public debate over access to guns. At this stage, the initiative is a consultation process rather than a proposed change in law.
The announcement was reported on Tuesday by Onet. No accompanying PiS firearms bill had appeared in the Sejm’s current list of legislation undergoing public consultation when checked on 29 September, meaning there is not yet a concrete legislative package against which the potential changes can be assessed.
The move follows remarks by Nawrocki on 25 September, when the president opened a new shooting range in Boguty-Pianki in Mazowieckie province and called for a “public discussion” about access to firearms.
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In his official speech published by the presidential chancellery, Nawrocki argued that security depended not simply on possession of weapons but on trained and responsible users. He said Poland should discuss “responsible access to firearms” and contrasted Poland with European countries where he said a greater proportion of the population was familiar with weapons.
Nawrocki said around 1% of Poles had access to firearms and knew how to use them. That figure should be treated cautiously, however. Poland’s Supreme Audit Office, NIK, said this year that official statistics do not allow the authorities to determine precisely how many individual people actually hold firearms permits, because one person can possess permits for several different purposes and therefore appear more than once in the data.
The latest complete figures examined by NIK show that there were almost 367,500 valid civilian firearms permits and more than 930,000 registered firearms at the end of 2024. The number of permits issued in individual years had also risen sharply, from just over 15,000 in 2020 to almost 46,000 in 2024.
Polish law does not provide unrestricted civilian access to firearms. Under the Act on Weapons and Ammunition, police may issue a permit where an applicant does not pose a threat to themselves or public safety and demonstrates a recognised reason for possessing a weapon.
Different requirements apply depending on the purpose. Hunting rights constitute a recognised basis for a hunting firearms permit, while applicants for sporting weapons generally require documented membership of a shooting organisation, appropriate sporting qualifications and a licence from the relevant Polish sports federation. Applicants are also generally subject to medical and psychological requirements.
The debate is therefore likely to cover not only how many people should be able to obtain weapons but also the safeguards surrounding ownership.
That question has become more prominent following a 2026 audit by the Supreme Audit Office, which concluded that Poland’s oversight system did not contain all the mechanisms needed to minimise risks associated with firearms ownership. NIK highlighted, among other things, shortcomings in monitoring whether permit holders continued to meet medical and psychological requirements.
The presidential palace had already begun examining the issue before Nawrocki’s public remarks. On 4 September, his advisory Council for Security and Defence discussed possible changes to firearms and ammunition legislation and heard representatives of shooting organisations. The council also completed work on a position concerning proposed changes affecting personal-firearm access for Territorial Defence soldiers.
The PiS consultations therefore add a party-political track to a debate already developing around the presidency and firearms organisations.
What they will ultimately produce remains unclear. PiS has not yet presented a final model for changing civilian access, and consultations with groups that already use firearms do not in themselves establish whether the party will seek broad liberalisation, targeted changes for particular categories of users or adjustments to existing permit procedures.
