It has become commonplace in Turkey to wake up every morning to the news that a woman has been murdered.
It's embarrassing to even say that sentence. But it is the truth.
Another woman...
In a house, on a street, in an automobile; often by the man closest to her...
And most of the time with a firearm.
It is no longer enough to talk about the issue only in terms of “male violence”. Of course, male-dominated mentality, culture of impunity and inequality are at the root of femicides. However, there is another reality that has aggravated the picture in recent years: uncontrolled and encouraged individual armament.
I made this clear in my speeches in Parliament years ago:
Individual armament is not an area of freedom, but a matter of public security. The primary duty of the state is to ensure the life safety of citizens, not to push them to take up arms.
At the point we have reached today, bitter experience shows how right those warnings were.
What do the statistics tell us?
According to the latest data from women's organizations and independent platforms, more than 300 women die every year in Turkey as a result of male violence. The data for 2024 also show that we could not go below this threshold. The first months of 2025 reveal that the picture has not changed.
What is more striking is this:
About half of the women killed are killed with firearms. In some months, this rate reaches up to 55 percent.
In other words, guns have become the main tool in femicides.
The number of licensed weapons in Turkey is expressed in millions. According to the latest assessments of security experts, field research and professional organizations, the total number of licensed and unlicensed weapons is close to 25 million.
This means that almost one in every three to four adults has a gun.
This picture is not a sign of security;
this picture is a sign of social disintegration.
The post-July 15 gun debate
After the July 15 coup attempt, the issue of armament took on a different dimension in Turkey. Discussions about the distribution of weapons to some structures and civilian elements that night and afterwards were publicized. The inventory of these weapons, whether they were recovered or not, and how they were tracked are still not transparently clarified.
State seriousness requires maintaining inventory discipline even in times of emergency.
The weapon is an instrument that should be managed by law and control mechanisms, not by emotional reflexes.
If the fate of weapons becomes a topic of discussion in a country after extraordinary processes, this is a security problem in itself.
“Lost Weapons, Lost Lives”
It is incomplete to discuss individual armament only in terms of licensed weapons. There is also the issue of missing, stolen and unknown weapons.
“As pointed out in the study titled ”Lost Weapons, Lost Lives", weaknesses in inspection mechanisms, lack of inventory transparency and inadequacies in tracking weapons pave the way for the illegal circulation of weapons.
Every missing gun is a potential murder.
Every untracked inventory is tomorrow's news of another death.
Today, the procurement process and history of a significant portion of the weapons used in femicides are not transparently disclosed to the public. Yet this information is vital for public security.
If the registration, tracking and control of weapons in a country is not transparent enough,
Not only weapons are lost there; lives are also lost.
The distance between anger and death
In societies where guns are common, the threshold for violence is lowered.
An argument, a divorce process, a separation decision...
In minutes it can turn into an irreversible tragedy.
The majority of femicides are committed at moments when women want to take decisions about their own lives:
Because they wanted a divorce, because they wanted to separate, because they said “no”...
The weapon becomes a symbol of absolute power in the hands of this male-dominated understanding of domination.
And we are still discussing individual armament as a “personal security choice”.
No, no, no.
This is not a matter of choice, it is a public security crisis.
As the legal ground weakens...
The withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, ineffective implementation of Law No. 6284, inadequate supervision of protection orders... All these are parts of a whole.
If women cannot be protected in a country,
if the perpetrators of violence are not deterred,
if access to weapons becomes easier...
The result is no coincidence.
Femicide is political.
Individual armament is political.
Lost weapons are political.
Because all of these are the result of public policies.
The duty of the state: Protect life, not guns
The solution is clear, but it requires courage:
Individual armament must be severely restricted.
Licensing criteria should be toughened and psychological and social examinations should be carried out meticulously.
The fight against unlicensed weapons must be carried out decisively and transparently.
All weapons inventories, including post-July 15, should be opened to independent audit.
Real deterrence must be ensured in the fight against violence against women.
You cannot free the gun and keep society peaceful.
You cannot weaken control and strengthen security.
It is a question of civilization
The level of civilization of a society is measured by how free and safe women are.
If women are killed in a country on the streets, at home, at work, even under a protection order, there is a serious state and legal problem there.
We do not want to see the women of this country in statistical tables.
We want to see them in life, as equal citizens, in safety.
25 million cannot build a democracy in the shadow of guns.
We don't want lives lost in the shadow of lost weapons.
We want a Turkey where the rule of law is supreme and the right to life is indisputable.
This is not an ideological issue, but a humanitarian one.
This is not a political issue, but a matter of conscience.
But the solution is political.
And we will continue to be on the side of life, not the gun.