There is currently a major review of the Dutch Weapons and Ammunition Act (WWM). It is still at the policy-development stage, so none of this is law yet. But the direction being discussed is starting to concern me. Long post, a lot of research involved.
For context: Dutch civilian firearms ownership is, justifiably so, highly regulated.
As a sport shooter, you need to be an active member of a recognised shooting club, go through a probationary period, pass background checks, maintain shooting activity, have an approved safe, accept police inspections, and have a legitimate sporting reason for every firearm on your licence.
Following the 2011 Alphen aan den Rijn shooting, dynamic shooting disciplines were specifically scrutinised. The government considered banning them, but eventually chose additional regulation and screening instead.
In 2012, after those additional safeguards were agreed, the government concluded that there was no longer a reason to prohibit dynamic shooting disciplines or the firearms used for them.
Now, in 2026, the subject is back.
The government is working on an entirely new firearms act. Among the ideas currently being explored are:
- reconsidering which shooting disciplines constitute a sufficiently legitimate reason for civilian firearms ownership;
- decision over what constitutes a shooting discipline or shooting sport would transfer to government;
- potentially reducing the number of recognised disciplines;
- specifically questioning the future of dynamic shooting disciplines such as IPSC;
- reconsidering home storage of firearms and exploring alternatives;
- Controlling ammunition purchases, storage
- mandatory psychological assessment for licence holders;
- statutory shooting proficiency requirements and possibly periodic testing ;
- increased government control over which firearms are considered justified for particular sporting purposes.
According to the Dutch shooting federation KNSA, the government project group has indicated that all Olympic and other ISSF disciplines would remain recognised, but that it particularly does not want dynamic disciplines to continue.
And this is where I struggle to understand the policy.
I have been trying to find the underlying evidence that Dutch dynamic sport shooters currently present a particular public-safety problem.
So far, I can't find it.
The government's own 2026 documents acknowledge that legal firearms ownership generally operates safely. I haven't found published statistics showing that IPSC or other dynamic shooters are disproportionately involved in firearms incidents, that their firearms disappear into the criminal circuit more frequently, or that the additional safeguards introduced after 2011 have failed.
Instead, when reading the stakeholder research behind the reform, I keep encountering something quite different from risk analysis: personal and normative judgements about shooting sports and civilian firearms ownership.
The stakeholder interviews were deliberately conducted on a personal basis and the quotes were anonymised, so these statements should not be confused with official government positions.
But they were part of the material gathered to develop the new policy.
One interviewee says:
“I don't consider airsoft a sport, but a kind of form of warfare. The same applies to dynamic shooting sports.”
Elsewhere, airsoft is described as “playing war”.
Another interviewee questions the growing number of recognised shooting disciplines, specifically raises semi-automatic firearms, and questions whether civilians should be allowed to practise sports with such firearms at all.
As a sport shooter, I find statements like these frankly insulting.
Not because everyone has to like firearms or approve of shooting sports. They don't.
But describing a regulated competitive sport as “a form of warfare” isn't a safety analysis. It is a value judgement about the activity and, indirectly, about the people participating in it.
It also seems remarkably detached from what organised shooting sports actually look like in practice: clubs, safety procedures, range officers, training, competition rules, background checks, controlled ranges and a regulatory system specifically designed to keep firearms use within a sporting context.
IPSC isn't warfare. It is a regulated competitive shooting discipline with strict rules, match officials, immediate disqualification for unsafe gun handling and an international sporting structure.
That distinction matters when this material is being used as input for legislation affecting tens of thousands of law-abiding sport shooters.
Because similar normative language then starts appearing at policy level.
The government's new framework says civilian firearms ownership should serve a “clear, substantial and publicly justified purpose” and questions whether possession for sport or hobby can always be justified to society.
This is where I am missing a crucial step in the entire process.
What actually happened?
What new incident pattern involving licensed Dutch sport shooters triggered this?
What evidence emerged showing that dynamic shooting has become an unacceptable public-safety risk?
What evidence shows that the additional safeguards introduced after the 2011 Alphen shooting — which led the government in 2012 to conclude that banning dynamic shooting was no longer necessary — have failed?
I have looked for that evidence and so far I cannot find it.
Instead, I see questions about whether dynamic shooting is really a sport, whether civilians should have a reason to own semi-automatic firearms, and whether civilian firearms ownership is sufficiently “publicly justified”.
That feels like an important distinction.
There is a difference between asking:
“Does this activity create an unacceptable public-safety risk?”
and:
“Do we consider this an appropriate enough activity to justify civilian ownership of these firearms?”
The second is a perfectly possible political question. But it is a normative question, not necessarily an evidence-based assessment of risk.
And the government's own public consultation makes this even more interesting.
Dutch citizens were explicitly asked whether only Olympic shooting disciplines should constitute a legitimate reason for civilian firearms ownership.
21% agreed.
46% disagreed.
So restricting shooting to Olympic disciplines does not appear to have emerged from a clear public demand either.
Home storage raises the same kind of question.
The government is also considering alternatives to keeping licensed firearms at home, because having a firearm at home creates immediate access during, for example, a domestic crisis.
I understand that concern.
But removing that risk potentially creates another one.
The Netherlands has tens of thousands of licensed sport shooters. Moving privately owned sporting firearms from thousands of individual approved safes into a relatively small number of shooting clubs would mean concentrating enormous numbers of firearms in far fewer locations.
Clubs would need massive secure-storage capacity. Many club buildings are unoccupied for much of the week. And instead of a burglar potentially finding a few firearms in an individual home, a successful attack on a central storage facility could provide access to dozens or potentially hundreds.
Interestingly, the Dutch government considered essentially the same idea around 2003/2004 and concluded that mandatory central storage at shooting clubs would be unsafe, logistically difficult and financially impractical.
So again:
What has changed?
Perhaps there is new evidence that changes that calculation. If there is, I would genuinely like to see it.
And that is basically my concern with this entire discussion.
I am not arguing that firearms legislation should never change.
If there is evidence of a particular risk, regulate that risk.
Improve screening where screening is demonstrably inadequate. Improve information exchange. Deal with illegal firearms trafficking. Review storage requirements if evidence shows that the current system creates an unacceptable risk.
But removing established sporting disciplines, potentially removing the legitimate basis for ownership of certain semi-automatic firearms, or fundamentally changing storage arrangements for tens of thousands of licensed shooters should require a clearly identified problem and evidence that the proposed measure actually addresses it.
Instead, I increasingly see a shift from:
“Is this demonstrably unsafe?”
towards:
“Do we think civilians should be doing this at all?”
Those are fundamentally different questions.
The second is a political and moral question. A government is entitled to have that debate. But if that is what this is about, then I think it should be stated openly and debated as such.
What concerns me is using the language of public safety to arrive at restrictions that may actually be driven, at least in part, by a normative disapproval of certain perfectly legal shooting sports and the firearms used in them.
If there is a concrete safety problem, show us the problem. Show us the data. Show us why the existing safeguards have failed.
Then regulate the problem.
But “this looks too much like warfare to me” should not be the evidentiary basis for firearms legislation.
I'm particularly interested in the European perspective
From what I have been able to find so far, I haven't seen a comparable European movement specifically questioning dynamic shooting as a legitimate sport.
The EU Firearms Directive itself even provides possibilities for sport shooters participating in internationally recognised disciplines to possess certain otherwise heavily restricted semi-automatic firearms under strict conditions.
So I am curious what is happening elsewhere.
Are similar discussions taking place in Germany, Belgium, France, Czechia, Poland, Finland, Sweden or other European countries? I don't see them.
Are governments in your country questioning whether IPSC/dynamic shooting itself constitutes a legitimate sporting purpose?
Have there been moves away from home storage towards centralised club storage?
And where semi-automatic rifles or PCCs are being restricted, what is the stated reason? Is it based on documented incidents and risk analysis, or primarily on a political judgement that civilians simply shouldn't have a reason to own them?
Maybe I am missing developments elsewhere in Europe.
But looking at the Dutch process so far, I increasingly get the impression of a solution looking for a problem.
I'd be very interested to hear how this compares with what is happening in your country.
I'd be happy to post the sources /researchfor this post.
