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    Default Myths of European Gun Laws

    Myths of European Gun Laws

    By Don B. Kates | Published March 18, 2013

    Several years ago Canadian criminologist Gary Mauser and I published what is apparently the only extensive study of violent crime and gun laws internationally. Our study debunked two widespread myths: First, that European gun laws are much more restrictive than American; and second, that Europe has less violence than America. ["Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide: A Review of International Evidence," Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol 30 (2007)].


    EUROPEAN GUN LAWS
    Now it is true that European gun laws are often different from ours. This is largely because they aim to stem political violence, not apolitical gun crime. But they are not generally more restrictive. Only sheer ignorance of Europe explains anti-gun claims that European gun laws are much more restrictive than ours and that those laws cause Europe to have much less violent crime.
    The falsity of such claims appears in the record of the Supreme Court case that struck down Washington D.C.’s ban on handguns or and on keeping any gun loaded for self defense (Heller). An amicus brief filed there by dozens of European professors said their various lands’ laws were far less restrictive of gun ownership than D.C. [Brief of Amicus Curiae International Scholars in Support of the Respondent; District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) (No. 07-290), 2008 WL 466090].
    Moreover European gun laws generally allow far more extensive gun use against crime than American law does. Let me begin with two examples of that point.


    SHOOTING THIEVES
    A Columbia Law School professor uses a German case to illustrate how European law greatly differs from American. In the 1920s a German farmer was tried for shooing starving children who were stealing from his orchard. Now under our law, which is based on what is deemed reasonable, the farmer was clearly guilty. But he was exonerated by the German court because European law follows the thought of Immanuel Kant: There is the Right and there is the Wrong – and never need the Right yield to the Wrong! The farmer is in the Right and the starving children are in the Wrong. So if the only way to stop their thefts is to shoot them, then shoot them he may.
    A later German statute overturned this – but in a way that reinforces it. The statute only overrules the case if children are shot. But the farmer may shoot if an adult steals his fruit.


    SHOOTING A RETREATING RAPIST
    The following is not an actual case but a hypothetical I constructed to illustrate the difference of Anglo-American law from more gun-friendly European law. HYPOTHETICAL: A rapist attacks a woman but retreats when she draws a gun from her purse. The woman, frightened and outraged, shoots him anyway. Under our law this is called “imperfect self-defense.” It is manslaughter (not murder) if the rapist dies; assault with a deadly weapon if he does not.
    But under Austrian, Dutch, French, German and Italian law the result is entirely different. If she shot him from “outrage” (i.e., vigilantism) at his attack the court can just acquit her.


    BUYING/OWNING GUNS – LAW JUST AS PERMISSIVE AS OURS
    As to buying and owning guns, European laws are generally as permissive as American. It is true that you need a special permit to buy a 9 mm. handgun in many European nations. What ignorant American gun prohibitionists don’t understand is that this is a special control on “military-caliber weapons.” Similar controls ban military caliber rifles without special permission. But there is no restriction on other rifles or on handguns in, for instance, .380, .38 Super, 9mm Ultra and many more powerful handguns e.g., any of the magnums or .40 S&W, .45 auto, .45 Long Colt, .454 Casull, .460 S&W Magnum, 475 Linebaugh, .480, .500 and other powerful handguns.


    ITALY – GUN LAWS
    Unlike residents of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts or California, law abiding responsible Italians can buy any revolver or semi-auto they want. No permit is required nor is there any waiting period. Though the handgun must be registered, buying it involves less fuss and red tape than Americans face even in Texas.


    AUSTRIA – GUN LAWS
    Austrians require permits for semi-automatic pistols but not to buy a revolver. Moreover law abiding responsible adults have a specific legal right to a permit for a semi-automatic pistol for home defense.


    AUSTRIAN CARRY PERMITS
    Permits to carry are much more available to law abiding Austrians than to Americans in New York, Massachusetts or California. For a population of over 37 million, California has about 40,000 carry permits. For its population of around seven million, Austria has over 200,000 carry permits.


    FRANCE, GERMANY – GUN LAWS
    In France and Germany permits (easily available to responsible adult householders) are required to possess a handgun of modern design. But if you are satisfied with a cowboy-style gun, France requires no permit at all to buy a newly manufactured revolver of pre-1895 design.
    Consistent with its focus on political crime, European law precludes stockpiling guns. You might be able to own multiple guns in different calibers, but not 10 or 20 in the same caliber.
    There are no magazine size restrictions on semi-autos.


    CRIME RATES
    Nine European nations have fewer than 5,000 guns per 100,000 population. Seven have more than three times as many guns per 100,000 population. The nine nations’ violent crime situation is disappointing, even shockingly contrary to the myth that restricting guns diminishes murder. Their murder rates are three times higher than those of the seven high gun ownership nations!
    We collected many examples: Norway has far and away Western Europe’s highest household gun ownership (32% of households), but also its lowest murder rate. Holland has the lowest gun ownership in Western Europe (1.9%), and Sweden lies midway between (15.1). Yet the Dutch murder rate is half again higher than the Norwegian, and the Swedish rate is even higher yet, though only slightly. Greece has over twice the per capita gun ownership of the Czech Republic, yet gun murder is much lower in Greece and the Greek murder rate with all weapons is also lower. Though Spain has over 12 times more gun ownership than Poland, the latter has almost a third more gun murder, and its overall murder rate is almost
    twice Spain’s. Poor Finland: it has 14 times more of these evil guns than its neighbor Estonia. Yet Estonia’s gun murder and overall murder rates are about seven times higher than Finland’s.
    The nations of Western Europe and Scandinavia – whose gun laws are often less restrictive than American — have very low murder rates. But not the nations that ban guns. For instance:


    RUSSIA
    Russia banned handguns in 1929 and also strictly controls long guns. Its murder rates and those of gun banning former Soviet possessions and satellites in Europe are much higher than American. (U.S. – fewer than 5 murders per 100,000 population; Russia – more than 20 murders per 100,000 population.)
    But yes, if your only concern is eliminating GUN murder, Russia has virtually done that – despite having an overall murder rate far exceeding the U.S. and most of the rest of Europe. So what the Russian experience proves is that outlawing handguns does nothing to prevent murder.
    Russia’s handgun ban succeeded largely because Russians are too poor to afford them. But Russia also has a unique policy. It chose for military and police guns and ammunition that is unique, so even if a Russian soldier smuggled a foreign gun home he could not find ammo there.


    ENGLAND
    What about ultra-restrictive England where all legally owner handguns were confiscated in 1997? Its murder rate is the highest in Western Europe and English violent crime overall is much higher than in the U.S. England annually has over 45,000 violent crimes per 100,000 population while the US has 33,600. For robberies the English rate is 2000 per 100,000 population compared to 600 for the US. The English rate for rape is 6100 per 100,000 people — nearly three times higher than the US rate.
    In the late 1990s hundreds of thousands of English handguns and many long guns were confiscated from owners law abiding enough to turn them in. Yet today English news media headline violent crime in the kind of doleful, melodramatic reports that for so long characterized American news reporting. The 2002 report of England’s National Crime Intelligence Service lamented, that though “Britain has some of the strictest gun laws in the world [i]t appears that anyone who wishes to obtain a firearm [illegally] will have little difficulty in doing so.”
    Also in 2002 Harvard University Press published Professor Joyce Lee Malcolm’s GUNS AND VIOLENCE: THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE which summarizes the failure of English gun banning. In 1900 England had no gun control and a violence rate among the lowest in the world. After a century of ever more gun restriction “areas in England, America and Switzerland with the highest rates of gun ownership were in fact those with the lowest rates of violence.”
    Concomitant is a federally sponsored study of all available information on gun controls was published. Though its authors were originally anti-gun, in researching the matter they found: “There is no evidence anywhere to show that reducing the availability of firearms in general likewise reduces their availability to persons with criminal intent or that persons with criminal intent would not be able to arm themselves under any set of general restrictions on firearms.” [James. D. Wright, Peter Rossi & Kathleen Daly, UNDER THE GUN: WEAPONS, CRIME AND VIOLENCE IN THE UNITED STATES 138].

    http://www.calgunlaws.com/myths-of-european-gun-laws/

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    Makes our laws not look too bad either, ironically.

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    Default Re: Myths of European Gun Laws

    Interesting reading. Adele any comments?

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    Default Re: Myths of European Gun Laws

    Quote Originally Posted by dux View Post
    Interesting reading. Adele any comments?
    Ya' think?

    She'll just rave on about being 4 times as likely to die from your own gun than I don't know what. No facts have stopped her doing it thus far...

    Very interesting post WZ, thanks.

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    Default Re: Myths of European Gun Laws

    Quote Originally Posted by Manservant View Post
    Makes our laws not look too bad either, ironically.
    I maintain that this country has very friendly gun laws (even though more restrictive that in the past).

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    Quote Originally Posted by Billy The Kid View Post
    I maintain that this country has very friendly gun laws (even though more restrictive that in the past).
    I think less unfriendly is closer to the truth than more friendly.

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    Default Re: Myths of European Gun Laws

    Quote Originally Posted by BigT View Post
    I think less unfriendly is closer to the truth than more friendly.
    Yup!

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    Quote Originally Posted by BigT View Post
    I think less unfriendly is closer to the truth than more friendly.
    If friendly means you walk out of the shop with the ak, then you're right.

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    Default Re: Myths of European Gun Laws

    Poland: The ownership of the hunting rifles (that includes hunting-style semi-autos) is easy once you have been found fit after passing all the exams. You want next gun - you go to the shop and buy it. it needs to be recorder on your "licence". Handguns - much more difficult, because the shooting sports (other than Olympic style target shooting) are still in their infancy. All handgun owners have to undergo regular psychological evaluation (on their own costs). I don't remember the frequency - every year or every 3 years. Anti-gun lobby pushes for the same for the hunters - so far unsuccessfully.
    AFAIK FAs deaths in Poland are mostly related to gangs and mafia-style organisation. Remember Poland is the Easter border of the European Union and there is quite a lot of trans-border business going on. The "normal" criminals are usually not violent and will run away when confronted.
    To obtain the licence for "carry gun" for self defense is quite difficult and not popular among ordinary citizenry.
    Mj

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    Default Re: Myths of European Gun Laws

    Quote Originally Posted by Billy The Kid View Post
    If friendly means you walk out of the shop with the ak, then you're right.
    No friendly means no needs based licensing, arbitrary limits, or prosecuting people for being the victim of a crime.

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