JEDDAH: Five businessmen have been provisionally selected to receive licenses to sell arms for personal use by a special committee set by the Ministry of Interior in Riyadh. Two others have been selected as reserves in case some of the approved shops fail to open stores.
The Interior Ministry was studying the ways to introduce legislation to control the sale of arms and ammunition in the country, according to a ministry statement in last November last.
“Strict measures will be introduced to prevent the unauthorized buying and selling of such weapons and to reduce gun-running in the Kingdom,” a ministry official said in mid-November. The committee that comprised representatives of the Riyadh governor’s office, the Investigations Department in Riyadh and Riyadh police selected seven businessmen from 51 applicants for license through lots last week.
Brig. Muhammad Al-Amri, assistant director of Riyadh police, urged the selected businessmen to be fully aware of their responsibility as arms sellers and not to be motivated by profit making alone.
However, Director of the Arms and Explosives Division of the Riyadh police Col. Muhammad Al-Olayani said selection of the five applicants was a preliminary step in the acceptance of their applications but the final approval was to come from the Ministry of Interior.
An applicant for license, Muhammad Al-Hussein of the Zaid Al-Hussein Group, told Arab News that “The selection process was transparent and the lots were taken out in the presence of all applicants.” Al-Hussein, who has considerable experience in the import of sporting and hunting weapons, hoped the licensing of arms and ammunition sales in the country would end people’s practice of buying weapons for self-defense through illegal channels.
Al-Hussein, who did not figure in the first five selected applicants, is one of the two reserves. He hoped that licenses would be issued soon in other provinces as well.
He believed that the number of shops in various provinces would depend on the level of population in each province.
He added that the licensed parties would import arms mostly from the United States and Europe at affordable prices. Nevertheless, he did not have any idea of the volume of the personal weapons market in the Kingdom.
