Was the school shooting in Prague on December 21, 2023, a false flag operation to disarm legal gun owners? No, that's not true: There is no evidence to support such a claim, and a new, stricter gun law had already been submitted to the Czech parliament and was awaiting a vote before the shooting took place.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok by @janvymazal on December 24, 2023. The man in the video said (translated from Czech to English by Lead Stories staff):
The question is, whether this whole case isn't a false flag, aimed at disarming of citizens, who legally hold guns.
He also said (as translated):
I think this case is different than is being presented to us and that its goal is disarming of innocent citizens, who have legal guns in order to protect themselves from criminal attacks, because the criminality is on the rise since 1990.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Dec 27 16:00:13 2023 UTC)
The claim also appeared in another video (archived here) on TikTok on December 26, 2023, with the caption (as translated): "It is a false flag to disarm people!"
A search for the phrase "Prague School Shooting was a false flag operation" (archived here), using Google News' index of thousands of credible news sites, did not reveal any factual reports that would support the claim made in the video.
A new law proposing stricter gun laws was on the verge of passing in the Czech parliament before the shooting.
"It is a sad paradox, that an amendment of the gun law is already in the Chamber [of Deputies]," said Czech Minister of Interior Vit Rakusan during a press conference on December 22, 2023.
