What could have brought that about?

More Germans applying for alarm gun licenses – More and more Germans are acquiring the permit they need to carry a gas pistol, a newspaper has reported. The number has more than doubled in the last five years.

The so-called Kleiner Waffenschein (“small weapons permit”) is relatively easy to acquire in Germany: they are usually available to anyone over 18 with no previous serious criminal convictions, and who is considered “physically and mentally fit.”

“At least since the events at the Cologne cathedral square on New Year’s Eve in 2015 people apparently feel more and more unsafe.”