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Directorate-General for Home Affairs. 2015 ‘Firearms Ownership - Firearms in the EU.’ Flash Eurobarometer 383: Firearms in the European Union; Part I (Section 1), pp. 6-7. Brussels: European Commission. 19 January

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Nine out of ten EU respondents have never owned a firearm

Firearms ownership is relatively uncommon across the EU: just 5% of European citizens own a firearm, while another 5% used to own one. Nine out of ten (90%) have never owned a firearm.

However, the country results show that firearms ownership is much more common in some Member States than in others. Cyprus has by far the highest ownership rate: 18% of respondents own a firearm, and 13% used to own one. Finland also has a relatively high ownership rate – 13% of respondents own a firearm, and 3% used to – while Croatia reports a high incidence of previous ownership (11% of respondents used to own a firearm, while 6% do so today).

In all other Member States, both current and prior firearms ownership is relatively low.

However, it is noticeable that in some cases current ownership is somewhat higher than former ownership – such as in Slovenia, where 9% of respondents own a firearm now but only 4% used to – while elsewhere we can observe the opposite pattern, such as in Belgium, where 3% of respondents own a firearm now but 7% did so previously.

Country: Never owned a firearm (%) - Used to own a firearm (%) - Own a firearm(%)
Netherlands: 95 - 4 - 1
United Kingdom: 94 - 4 - 2
Malta: 93 - 2 - 5
Poland: 93 - 5 - 2
Hungary: 93 - 4 - 3
Romania: 92 - 6 - 2
Slovakia: 91 - 3 - 4
Italy: 91 - 3 - 6
Spain: 90 - 4 - 5
Luxembourg: 90 - 5 - 5
Estonia: 90 - 6 - 3
EU: 90 - 5 - 5
Belgium: 89 - 7 - 3
Czech Republic: 89 - 5 - 6
Austria: 89 - 4 - 7
Greece: 89 - 3 - 7
Latvia: 89 - 6 - 5
Germany: 88 - 7 - 5
Sweden: 88 - 4 - 8
Portugal: 87 - 7 - 6
Ireland: 87 - 7 - 6
Bulgaria: 86 - 7 - 7
France: 86 - 7 - 7
Denmark: 86 - 7 - 7
Slovenia: 85 - 4 - 9
Lithuania: 85 - 6 - 8
Croatia: 83 - 11 - 6
Finland: 83 - 3 - 13
Cyprus: 68 - 13 - 18

ID: Q13506

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