Serbia president calls to disarm country after second mass shooting in two days

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic vowed to disarm the country on Friday, as Serbia reels from its second mass shooting in two days.

“We will carry out an almost total disarmament of Serbia,” Vucic said, according to The Washington Post. “We must make a decision to confront this evil.”

Eight people were killed and 14 were injured on Thursday in shootings in two villages near Mladenovac, south of the Serbian capital of Belgrade. Police arrested a suspect on Friday, after an overnight manhunt.

The slayings came just one day after a 13-year-old boy opened fire in his school in Belgrade, killing eight of his fellow students and a security guard.

“We’ve been walking around like zombies the last 24 hours, looking for a reason something like this could happen,” Vuvic added on Friday, as he announced his plans to make sweeping changes to the country’s gun laws, according to The New York Times.

Vuvic called for a two-year moratorium on new gun licenses, a full audit of legal gun owners and harsher prison sentences for those found with unregistered guns, the Times reported. He also vowed to increase Serbia’s police force by 1,200 officers over the next six months, as part of an effort to place an officer in every school.

In Serbia, there are about 39.1 firearms per 100 residents, giving it the third-highest rate of civilian gun ownership in the world, according to the 2018 Small Arms Survey.

The U.S. sits well ahead of every other country in civilian gun ownership, with 120.5 firearms per 100 residents.