Students’ visit to weapon exhibition in Turkey’s Trabzon stirs debate

TRABZON

A visit to a weapons exhibition by primary and high school students, organized by the Black Sea Technical University (KTÜ), has stirred debate amid reportedly rising cases of violence in Turkish schools.

Primary and high school students were invited to this year’s 4th KTÜ Defense Industry Days fair organized by KTÜ’s Mechanical Engineering Department, at which various types of weapons were exhibited.

The checking of the weapons by children during their visit stirred outrage among Turkish social media users after photos of the visit emerged.

However, Oğuz Bekar, sales and marketing manager of a local firearm manufacturing company, can be seen in the video telling the visiting students that weapons must be handled with care.

“We have to make this a necessity in our country: Let’s keep guns away from children. Let’s hide our weapons at home. There have been very sad incidents about this,” Bekar said.

The controversy comes after a fatal firearm incident at a school in Istanbul’s Pendik district made headlines in Turkey in October 2017, in which one person was killed and two were injured.

The attacker, armed with a hunting rifle, reportedly attempted to commit suicide by cutting his wrists after the assault but was detained by police and taken to hospital.

Local media reports at the time said the girl who was killed in the incident was the attacker’s former girlfriend.