Soest, Germany - A doctor who says he treats people on some of Germany's meanest streets won a court victory Friday over police who wanted to take away his gun. The doctor said he sometimes had to treat crazed drug addicts and disturbed patients waving weapons when paying emergency house calls at night in the small city of Soest in western Germany.
Police had denied him a special gun licence allowing him to pack a pistol along with his stethoscope, saying he should use pepper spray to keep the problem cases at bay.
But a state administrative tribunal in Arnsberg disagreed, saying he seemed level-headed in a crisis and had plausibly described the dangers he faced.
Judges said police could limit the licence to certain times and dangerous parts of town.
"They accepted that it was pretty exceptional," said Reinhard Becker, lawyer for the pistol-packing doctor. Most German doctors did not have to arm themselves in order to make house calls.
Germany has strict civilian gun laws, banning under-18 gun use and largely limiting guns to hunting and gun clubs.
