Interview with Mario Kneringer (IPSC Austria)
Hello. Please introduce yourself.
I am the Regional Director of IPSC in Austria.
The Confederation is organized in a way that every country
has its own national organization headed by the Regional Director.
You could also call him "President".
There recently was the first IPSC World Championship...
For rifles. Handgun championships have been around for years.
What many don't know:
The first world championship for handguns took place in Austria.
How do shooters ideally prepare and train for a World Championship?
In Austria, you actually need to meet certain qualification criteria.
You need to actively compete, your gear must be in order, etc.
You are being sent there by your region.
You can't just decide by yourself
that you wanna go, register and say "I wanna participate in this",
but the region decides which shooters will be send to represent it.
How did the national chapter prepare for the World Championship?
We of course had to organize everything on the admin side,
so that we would be able to bring our guns to Russia.
Ammunition was another concern,
because we were only allowed to bring 5 kg of ammo on the plane,
which would not have been enough.
We also supported our athletes throughout the visa process,
as best we could.
Registration for the event also has to be done by the organization,
single athletes cannot register on their own.
So we had to get all the necessary details from each shooter
whic we then transmitted to the organizers in Russia,
who then took care of all paperwork.
Please describe the situation at Vienna International Airport.
We of course registered the guns with the airline ahead of time,
we had all the paperwork in order.
As we were heading to check-in,
we of course met well ahead of time because we knew that the
processing of our firearms would take some time,
they really check every detail.
So we met up ahead of time, like I said.
And as we're headed towards check-in we were greeted by two customs officers,
who informed us that we would not be allowed to leave for Russia with our guns.
We of course spoke to customs well in advance.
The Customs Service provided us with an EU directive to the effect that
sporting and hunting firearms including ammunition
do not require any kind of special export authorization.
I also tried to get this in writing from several minstries,
but I was unable to procure any written confirmation.
They told us everyhwere that they didn't need to provide any confirmation,
as there is a current legal statute which will be enough in and of itself.
We were informed that they, had received a direct order
straight from the ministry that very same morning.
I can't say for sure from whom,
as we weren't shown the email received by the customs officers,
they only ever read it to us,
but it seemed to be an internal order, requiring them
to not let us board our flight to Russia with our firearms.
So the officers were aware that this order was illegal? (See Disclaimer!)
Yes, one of the officers even directly confirmed this,
since I had a printed copy of the relevant EU directive on me,
which I showed him and asked him to comply.
He replied that while they had always done so in the past
and although the directive was in effect,
they still couldn't let us board our flight in contravention to their orders.
Would it have been an option to just borrow guns in Russia?
Of course not. First of all, every athlete has their gear fine tuned.
Just like any professional skier has his skis tailored to their needs,
every shooter will prepare their tools to match their needs,
taking into account their height, special requirements, personalized loads, etc.
A lot of time goes into this process of fine tuning,
until everyone is happy with their kit.
This would be the same as taking away a rally driver's vehicle right
before a race and telling them that they could just as well
use any rental car in this race, which might not even be
suited for rally racing in the first place.
What was the outcome at the airport?
The situation got quite strange, as even the customs and police
officers at the scene would have liked to help us out.
They even said themselves that they just couldn't
understand why athletes would be kept from going
to and participating in a major event. Then we decided to
just try and take our optics off our rifles
so we might at least be able to use them on our rental guns
at the event to compensate for not having our own gear.
The customs officers were nice enough to provide us
with a room to work on our firearms,
as we couldn't just take them out of their cases right at check-in.
A couple of our team members had already taken their optics
off their rifles when suddenly a phone call came in, to the
effect that we wouldn't even be allowed to bring our optics
onto the plane, nor any other parts of our gear.
How this even came to pass, I have absolutely no idea.
It became pretty clear though, that someone was doing their
utmost to keep us from boarding that plane with our stuff.
And that was the point when half our team decided that
it wouldn't be worth it to even go under these circumstances.
The other half however decided that we wouldn't let this ruin the event
and that we'd go even without our guns.
This was only possible because I was able to reach my colleage from work,
who came to pick up the rifles as I couldn't just leave them
at the airport unsupervised.
How did the athletes from other countries fare by comparison?
It became clear that out of all EU countries
only Germany, France and Austria acted in this way.
All other countries - Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands,
Czech Republic, Hungary – none of them had any problems,
all of them were able to bring their firearms.
Just these three countries didn't support their athletes.
What was the reaction of the other athletes at the event?
We really received a whole wave of support and solidarity.
Everyone really tried to help us wherever they could.
A friend of mine from South Africa, whom I met through sport shooting,
immediately offered me his rifle to shoot the competition with.
Shooters from the Czech Republic, Hungary and also Russia offered
us their own gear to use during the World Championship.
Ultimately we made do with this borrowed gear
and were at least able to actually compete in the event.
So there was no unsupportive attitude from any of the other athletes?
Yeah, it proved once again that such major events really
serve to bring together people from different countries and backgrounds.
That was also the reason that no one really understood why we'd be harassed
like this and treated like common criminals, although
we just wanted to travel to a sporting event and compete.
How did you do with the borrowed equipment?
I came in 77th place, the second best Austrian, the best Austrian
came in 65th place, the next best came in 80th out of 370
athletes that competed in our class. And all of that
on borrowed gear - so that was really quite the achievement.
Will you just "let this slide" or will there be legal consequences for those responsible?
No, we will, together with our attorney who, on the day we left really tried
to find a solution to this problem and who ended up
sending well over 60 emails to several
contacts and really did his utmost to try and turn
this around and reach a favorable outcome, exhaust every
legal course of action available and we'll see what this
EU directive actually says and who will end up having been
in the right and who will have been in the wrong.
We'll also see how it could come to pass that, on the
one hand, everyone agrees that we're carrying sporting firearms
and then on the other hand claim that we would not be allowed
to leave the country with these military grade weapons.
Who actually gave the order?
This will certainly come to light during the court proceedings.
There's also some insecurity for Schwechat police department,
who are actually responsible for firearm checks at the airport.
The officer in charge there had not been informed at all,
and didn't know if there had even been an order to handle our case differently.
As things stand now, it seems that not even a hunter could bring his guns to Russia.
We were not allowed to take our optics on the plane, because they
said that those are "dual use" capable, meaning they could be
used for sport but also for other military purposes, which of course
applies to pretty much any optic for any firearm.
We'll definitely keep following this story! Thank you very much for the interview!
I wanna thank you guys for giving me the opportunity to
reach a wider audience with this topic through your channels.
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