I'm looking for a little information on how widespread and common firearms related offences are in various different countries from the respective board members. Already know about the UK obviously, and American cultural imperialsim has the US covered , what what about Europe? Know pretty much nothing about that. How widespread are illegal firearms- are they easy to get, are they used frequently, what's the police's reaction etc.

In Finland: Strict laws, very strict for anything but hunting weapons, and the police will immediately intervene if they think you might have a firearm anywhere near a public area. Getting illegal weapons is, I would assume, quite difficult, but organized crime (incl. some biker gangs, etc) certainly has them and anyone with some contacts and money should be able to get them.

[Edit]Should probably mention that carrying weapons (as opposed to transporting them) in public is never legal. There is no license in Finland that would allow a civilian to carry a (concealed or unconcealed) firearm in public.[/Edit]

The Russian border is about as well watched as borders get between two nations not at war, but smuggling constantly happens. Heavier weaponry is very rare, but organized crime is known to use a few LAWs and hand grenades in settling grievances. Unregistered (old) firearms are common. Around 1 in 4 households has a gun, mostly bolt action hunting rifles or shotguns.

In 1997, there were 0.87 gun homicides per 100,000 people (44 total) in Finland according to UN statistics. Most "gun crime" statistics seem to include suicides by firearms (which is not a crime, but extremely common in Finland), and the rest only seem to include homicides with guns.

The case that just finished in Leeds pretty much shows how little guncrime is in England.

You can find tables like this easily through Google. They might be of some use, although most are skewed in one direction or another, and the data used are often badly out of date and not necessarily comparable.

Firearms laws are very strict in Germany.
You can only possess semi-automatic handguns, rifles and shotguns - provided you are a hunter, member of a shooters club or have a job that requires armament (e.g. bodyguard).
Ownership permissions are given by the police after a background and need check (if you have ever commited a crime - forget about guns!).
All guns must be registered with the police.
Permissions come in two kinds:
a) Waffenbesitzkarte - you may own one or more firearms, store them at home, use them while hunting or on shooting ranges and transport them unloaded between these locations.
b) Waffenschein - you may own firearms and carry them loaded with you (this type of permission is rare).

Committing a crime while carrying a gun (whether it was used or not) automatically results in more severe punishment.

*Sigh* this kinda stuff makes me a little sad about the country I live in. Hell, the neighborhood I live in, and I'm just in downtown Honolulu.

And we wonder why the rest of the world thinks we're just a little crazy.

Ah well - the Right to Bear Arms is just one of our little quirks.

-Siege

And yet I seem to recall hearing of the little town in Texas or something where there are so many guns on so many people that crime of any sort is very rare - because anybody might shoot you... love to see an old biddy with a sixgun under her shawl

Makes sense, though, when you think about it - a law (like to forbid the carriage of firearms) will affect only the law abiding, not the lawless, and so perpetuates the trouble. In a relative state, where all are equally heeled, protection of oneself and one's property is far more feasible - and 50% of the schmucks that get killed will be the crooks! Sounds better to me...

Ok i've edited my personal view out of my post in an effort to keep this thread from becoming a gun control debate.


But pleaasssseeee I beg:


We have had this discussion more than one previously and it leads to nothing but bitter, bitter devisiveness. So lets end this now. You can find whatever stats you want to find depending on what sites you go to. But if you look at peer reviewed scientific journals you will see that I am correct. But please just go Google your stats for the side you believe in and don't bring this up for debate again.

Please let this tread die....let us not discuss politics or religion because contrary to what I may say, I do like most of you and it's not worth the bitter debates things like this engender.

Let's try not to discuss how these things "should" be, and instead concentrate on how they are, eh? There's no reason to kill this thread, because this thread is not about how well gun control works or what people happen to think about the 2nd Amendment or about any other crap of that nature. This is a thread about the gun crime (and gun laws) of European countries.

ok fine. In a gesture of good faith I'll use my university resources to compile some information on the subject. However, there shall be NO comments as to the pros and/or cons of gun control policies. It will be like a good news show, we report, you decide and keep it in your pants.

And is also a perfect time to use Private Messages. Seriously, don't report here, it won't end well.

~J

ok whoever wants the information that I'm digging up just PM me and I"ll send it thanks.

IIRC, there are a large number of guns (probably of the assault rifle variety) in private Swiss hands. I seem to recall that National Service is manditory, with an addendum that the individual must then subsequently keep the rifle he is issued on hand (and in good order) after he leaves the service.

Nope, none (or very few) of them are private hands. Every able-bodied male between 18 and 34 is conscripted into the army, and they keep their weapons and uniforms in their homes; such weapons are still property of the Swiss military.

~J

Pedant much?

They are most explicitly not private hands. They are military personnel in possession of military weapons, not civilians owning guns of their own. There is a big difference.

~J

I did not say they were privately owned. I stated that they were in private hands, as opposed to being locked away in an armory.

I do recall reading in a couple of places that these weapons are kept after the individual leaves the service.

The latter is possible. The former is incorrect. A soldier is not "private hands", nor is he or she a private citizen or a civilian.

~J

You are arguing semantics. The weapon is kept in the soldier's possesion, instead of an armory, hence my use of private hands.

To be correct, maybe I should have included corporal and sergeant hands?

My initial point really was the latter statement however.

Besides, if the latter is correct, then the weapons are in fact in private hands.

Not unless they're carried at all times

~J

there is a similar system in work here in norway. a large number of people are part of the "home guard" (most direct translation of its name i can think of). basicly everyone have a ag3 (local variant on the h&k g3 i think it is) at home. lately there have been a lot of talk about this tho as there have been some shooting incidents based on these guns, prompting a discussion about how to keep them under control so that people dont miss-use them while still haveing them out there for when they are needed (i think they came up with a locking device that you insert where the magazine goes and locked in place. key stored with the group leader or something like that). the heavyer stuff (machine guns and similar weapons) is under lock and key in depots around the contry.

i can think about maybe 1 shooting in the last year (happend not to long ago) that was not crime related (we have and some rather nasty robberys happening lately tho. with smgs or something like that in use by the criminals. very organized btw) and it was a open argument between a ex-couple where the man shot the woman and then him self.

if a weapon is used in a crime its mostly a knife or similar sharp object (there was a strange event up north where the flight crew got attecked by a person useing an axe. local flight with a small aircraft so no proper door into the cabin and no metal detector or seach for and luggage. security have been beefed after it happend) and then its very rare that someone actualy gets hurt or killed.

A militia is by definition composed of non-soldiers.

~J

Kagetenshi

Are you suggesting that all Males are 18-34 in Switzerland are, in fact, standing military personnel? If this is, Geneva convention type Legality TRUE military assets, what kind of training do they receive? What kind of oversight is there? No Flame, I honestly would like to know.

Basically the question is, do Swiss citizens who are in this branch of their military have fundamentally different exposure and access (Firepower-wise, availability-wise, education-wise, and legal wise) to Firearms than non military (militia) US Citizens.

The point here (And I hope I haven't crossed any lines because I don't think I've argued for or against anything here) is that the comparison between members of the Swiss home guard and American Citizenry is made to question the assertion that "Availability of Firepower" can be directly related to gun violence, because it would seem that a Large portion of the Swiss population has available to them significantly more Firepower than any segment of the American population.

My question then becomes, what training, oversight, and exposure to firearms do you think that Swiss Citizens gains from the Change in Legal status from civilian to Military that makes their experience with firearms fundamentally different from an American civilian?

Bit, it is not Illegal to own a Fully automatic weapon in the United States. Any Citizen can own one, but it requires a Federal Firearms Class III license, that costs about $200 per year (also subject to local Laws).

Not quite:

I was simply pointing out, in reference to availability of such weapons on Switzerland (apparently, nearly all 18-34 males have one), that these weapons could be aquired by nearly anyone , that nearly every male 18-34 in the US could also have, not that they were infact owned by many people in that demographic. Illegality suggests a prohibition, not just heavy regulation.

They are in fact conscripted, spend 18 to 21 weeks in training, and spend 300 days in active service. Practically speaking there are some people who get out of it for physical or mental reasons, and to a certain degree I'd imagine they'd let out anyone who tried to get out (though they do add an additional 2% income tax to anyone not serving for the duration of what would have been their service). After their active service, they receive three weeks of training every year or every other year; I'm not sure what determines who goes yearly and who biyearly.

Edit: turns out anyone with moral or other objections to military service may apply for civil service instead (and not pay the additional tax), so they probably would not in fact be lenient on those attempting to be exempted for physical or mental reasons.

~J

And you assert that the extra government sponsored training encourages safer more responsible use of military grade hardware?

To elaborate, there are about 728,000 legaly possessed fully automatic firearms registered in BATF databases. This number is probably low since the BATFs records have been found to have 50% error rate. As a result of this error rate, illegal ownership of fully-automatic weapons is unlikely to be prosecuted at the federal level in the near future.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r104...4:FLD001:E51461

I'm sure quite a few of these weapons are owned by movie prop warehouses and many others are owned by police departments. The actual numbers of citizens with personal Class III liscenses is fairly low.

It should be noted that one one federaly registered machine gun has been used for a violent crime since the law went into effect and that crime was commited by a police officer.

The assertion that training helps prevents criminal use is silly. However, training does help prevent stupid accidents and collateral damage, which are far more sensationalized than criminals killing each other.

Generaly speaking, a person with a government permit of some sort, no matter if it is a Class III license or a state concealed carry permit, is far less likely to commit a crime than a person without such a permit. Also most criminals obtain their weapons through illegal or quasi-legal channels.

This is a very useful site for anyone interested in learning about US gun crime.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/guns.htm

Unfortunatly, I know little about European gun crime. However, it is worth noting that crime reports from Britain may be skewed because they do not include statistics for political terrorism. This policy was intended to artificially lower the crime rate during the IRA's heyday.

Also, Israel, which has a policy similar to Switzerland suffers from a phenomenally low homocide rate despite suicide bombers. I'm not sure if Isreali officials include terrorist acts in crime respots, however I've seen no indication that they don't.

As an additional factoid, the new manufacture of machine guns for private ownership and the importing of machine guns for private ownership have been curtailed as of 1986 and 1968 respectively. Thus, the supply of fully automatic firearms that are available for private sale is fixed. Because these guns are at least 20 years old now (and many much older) they tend to be in the hands of collectors.

Gawd, sorry, but I can't bother adding anything to the discussion on right or wrong, over-my-dead-cold-body, is-Michael-Moore-God or whatever. Wasn't there somewhere in the guidelines or wherever this bit about keeping politics out?

Anyway. To add a bit perspective from Germany:
When the Iron Curtain went down all of a sudden there were dozens of stalls on flea-markets selling medals, uniforms and insignia of the Soviet era. I'm from Frankfurt, so we got a more than fair share of eastern people in the city, being European traffic hub and all that.
The same people who sold you mortar board shoulder patches of Soviet Marines also had something on offer underneath the counter...
Not AKs but Tokarevs at least.
This of course being the real fifth world and not the -ehrm- more liberal sixth, the police soon got the better of them.
But in any case they were able to get the hardware into the country. Add to this the influx of refugees - real ones and not so real ones - from the Balkans and you're set to let things go boom. So SR countries of middle and central Europe should have places where you might outfit a small army...

In the past few years Germany experienced student shootings just like the US. Nothing on the scale of Columbine but decidedly copycat, down to shotguns and black dusters. So teenage murderous insanity isn't a US-only thing.
These sad cases got their weaponry from their dad's basement, some allegedly just went to a shop and bought them with a bit of fast-talking the owner.
Laws are indeed quite harsh around here (and that's good) but as in role-playing games: rules are there to get around them. And it unfortunately works.

I would seriously question the assertion that the Sixth World is more liberal. I'd argue just less effective, governmentally speaking.

~J

I would assert that's why the "-ehrm-" is there.