Gun laws in the Czech Republic in their war for religious freedom against professional well armed and trained Catholic Crusader invaders. The word used for one type of hand held firearm used by the Hussites, , later found its way through German and French into English as the term pistol. Name of a cannon used by the Hussites, the , gave rise to the English term, "howitzer". Under common law tradition, civilians could possess firearms except artillery and insidious weapons (e.g. firearms that had appearance of other objects, etc.). First gun control laws were enacted during the early 18th century and dealt with illegal use of
Name of the Czech Republic Slovak national aspirations, the name "Czecho-Slovakia" (later "Czechoslovakia") was adopted instead. After the establishment of Czechoslovakia, the name "Czechia" appeared in English, alongside the official name, as a reference to all the Czech lands and to differentiate between the Czech and Slovak parts of the state. It was used at least as early as 4 January 1925; appearing in the article "Literary History of the Czechs", published by "The New York Times". The name was used in the Anglophone press before the German occupation of the Czech lands in 1939. The current English ethnonym "Czech" comes from the Polish ethnonym