Keeping and bearing arms in Czech

Kieran Williams

pp. 147-166

in: Masako Fidler, Václav Cvrček (eds), Taming the corpus, Berlin, Springer, 2018

Abstract

Determining the plain or primary meaning of words in legal language is crucial to compliance with and enforcement of laws, but also controversial if the methods used are subjective and unsystematic. Corpus linguistics is a potential remedy. This chapter uses corpus analysis to compare the usage of the Czech noun zbraň (weapon), verbs držet (keep) and nosit (bear), and adjectives bezúhonný (upstanding) and spolehlivý (reliable) in Czech gun law against their usage in wider discourse. The results suggest a marked misalignment between the two usages, with the words taking on connotations at law that would not be self-evident. Although the population of gun owners in the Czech Republic is small, the potential cost of misunderstanding the key terms of gun law has risen with the attempt in 2017 to create a constitutional right to keep and bear arms to assist the state in protecting national security.