Firearm News
Alleged killing of migrant by far-right politician prompts Italy gun control row
22 July 2021
Guardian
A row over privately owned guns has been ignited in Italy after a councillor with the far-right League party allegedly shot dead an immigrant.
Massimo Adriatici, a councillor for security in Voghera, is under house arrest after the shooting outside a bar in the Lombardy town on Tuesday night. Youns El Bossettaoui, a 38-year-old man from Morocco, was shot in the chest and later died in hospital.
Matteo Salvini, the leader of the League and a key partner in Mario... (GunPolicy.org)
Pandemic gun violence surge was not linked to rise in gun sales, study finds
9 July 2021
Guardian
Gun homicides surged across the United States during the coronavirus pandemic, in the same year that Americans bought a record-breaking number of guns.
But some of America's leading gun violence researchers have concluded that what might seem like an obvious cause-and-effect – a surge in gun buying leads to a surge in gun violence – is not supported by the data.
Through July of last year, there was no clear association between the increase in firearm purchases and... (GunPolicy.org)
How Bad is the Rise in US Homicides?
30 June 2021
Guardian
There's been a wave of media coverage this summer about an increase in homicides across the United States, with attention often focused on the same political question: will Americans still want to defund or even reform the police if "violent crime" is on the rise?
Anxiety about violent crime is often used to win elections. Police and politicians routinely share misleading, out-of-context crime statistics to advance their agendas. Fearmongering about rising crime has... (GunPolicy.org)
More Guns at the Root of 2020 Murder Increase in US
12 June 2021
Vox
The year 2020 saw the largest recorded increase in homicides in United States history — an increase likely propelled by a complex mix of factors, from more guns to stresses of the pandemic to fewer police officers on the streets to a crisis in relations between police and citizens.
But one persistent theory is that a change in policing last summer primarily drove increased gun violence. This is an especially popular explanation among law enforcement figures. Former... (GunPolicy.org)
Sweden's Gun Violence Rate Has Soared Due to Gangs,
26 May 2021
Guardian
Sweden is the only European country where fatal shootings have risen significantly since 2000, leaping from one of the lowest rates of gun violence on the continent to one of the highest in less than a decade, a report has found.
The report, by the Swedish national council for crime prevention (BRA), said the Scandinavian country had overtaken Italy and eastern European countries primarily because of the violent activities of organized criminal gangs.
"The rate in... (GunPolicy.org)
Italian Experts Call for a Reform on Firearm Ownership and Possession
20 May 2021
Avvenire
Saturday, April 10, in Rivarolo Canavese, in the province of Turin, an 83-year-old pensioner, Renzo Tarabella, after having shot his wife, Maria Grazia Valovatto, 70, and his 51-year-old disabled son Wilson, shot and killed the owners of the apartment where he lived, 74-year-old Osvaldo Dighera and his 70-year-old wife Liliana Heidempergher, and then attempted to commit suicide. The reason is not yet clear - probably for depression and resentment towards the neighbours... (GunPolicy.org)
Lest We Forget Massacre Victims
28 April 2021
The Australian
Twenty-five years after the Port Arthur massacre, which triggered national firearm controls, the number of gun owners and gun deaths has fallen dramatically, amid claims that states are eroding the landmark laws.
Wednesday marks a quarter of a century to the day since Martin Bryant's shooting spree on the Tasman Peninsula left 35 people dead and 18 wounded, shaking Australia from its gun culture complacency.
The National Firearms Agreement, brokered by then-prime... (GunPolicy.org)
Canada's Vision of Gun Control
18 April 2021
Bloomberg Opinion
At the same time that President Joe Biden was unveiling his plans this month to attack epidemic gun violence with all the tangential minimalism that U.S. law and politics can muster, I was 20 miles north of the U.S.-Canadian border watching what happens when people, and a nation, treat guns as if they might be dangerous.
In a small, carpeted classroom in Delta, British Columbia, a dozen of us filed in for the first of two days of classes — 15 hours in all —... (GunPolicy.org)
California Lawmakers Seek to Force Gunmakers to 'Microstamp' Bullet Casings
23 March 2021
Guardian
Gun control advocates are making a new attempt to force the gun industry to comply with a unique California law that requires bullet casings to be "microstamped", a measure that has been toothless since it was approved more than a decade ago.
California's 2007 law requires gun manufacturers to adopt microstamping technology on new types of handguns introduced in the state. The intent was to imprint a unique set of microscopic characters on all cartridge casings when... (GunPolicy.org)
Reports indicate financial costs of gun violence, MA gun laws effective
25 February 2021
Boston Globe
For gun-safety activists or everyday Massachusetts citizens concerned about gun violence, it doesn't get much better than this.
Newly released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show Massachusetts is the state with the least amount of gun violence per capita, while a new study by Everytown for Gun Safety concludes that the Commonwealth has the lowest-in-the-nation per capita costs from gun violence. Building on that good news, US Senator Ed Markey... (GunPolicy.org)
Forthcoming ASW Buyback Campaign and Ban in Canada
11 February 2021
CBC News (Canada)
Voluntary program will provide compensation to gun owners who give up firearms on blacklist
The Liberal government is expected to table a bill in the coming days that will set up a program to buy back assault-style weapons that were blacklisted last spring, Radio-Canada has learned.
The voluntary program will provide financial compensation to gun owners who give up their banned weapons, with the aim of taking them out of circulation.
Public Safety Minister Bill Blair... (GunPolicy.org)
Firearm Licences on the Rise in Czech Republic
10 January 2021
Zbrojnice.com (Czech Republic)
Gun stats 2020: number of legal owners up 0.63%, quarter of a million people allowed to carry firearms for personal protection
In 2020, the trend of a slight increase in the number of gun license holders continued to a total of 307,372 people. This is not a repeat of the fluctuations of 2013 (down nearly 5%) and 2016 (up 2.8%). Despite the existence of COVID restrictions, which brought with it repeated periods when proficiency tests were not conducted, slightly more... (GunPolicy.org)
Over 5 Million Registered Firearms in France
24 November 2020
Ouest France (France)
Combien d'armes circulent en France ?
L'Agrippa [application de gestion du répertoire informatisé des propriétaires et possesseurs d'armes] recensait, au 12 novembre 2020, plus de 5 millions d'armes ( 5 263 642 armes ) : 3 889 660 déclarées et 1 373 982 armes de catégorie A et B soumises à autorisation. En 2009, l'application avait recensé plus de 3 millions d'armes dont 2 147 849 déclarées. C'est donc 1 741 811 armes de plus en circulation dans l'hexagone.... (GunPolicy.org)
72 Small Arms Destroyed by Rural Communities in Sierra Leone
1 November 2020
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
On the 28th October 2020, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in collaboration with Sierra Leone National Commission on Small Arms (SLeNCSA) and communities in the border districts of Falaba and Kailahun destroyed 72 weapons collected from these communities under the Weapons for Development initiative of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)-European Union (EU) Organized Crime West African Response to Trafficking (OCWAR-T) project.
The... (GunPolicy.org)
Americans Have Bought Record 17m Guns in Year of Unrest
30 October 2020
Guardian
Americans have bought nearly 17m guns so far in 2020, more than in any other single year, according to estimates from a firearms analytics company.
Gun sales across the United States first jumped in the spring, driven by fears about the coronavirus pandemic, and spiked even higher in the summer, during massive racial justice protests across the country, prompted by police killings of black Americans.
"By August, we had exceeded last year's total. By September, we... (GunPolicy.org)
Biden pushes the most expansive gun regulation in US history
26 October 2020
Trace, Media release
Joe Biden's Evolution on Guns
Early in his career, Biden said gun regulation was ineffective. Several decades — and one notorious crime bill — later, he's pushing the most expansive reform platform in history.
On the night of August 25, 1994, a complicated package of legislation championed by then-Senator Joe Biden looked like it had gathered enough votes. Along with Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, Biden stood in front of television cameras and reporters... (GunPolicy.org)
CSOs Must Join Fight Against Ghana Arms Proliferation
15 October 2020
Graphic Online (Ghana)
Civil society organisations (CSOs) have been urged to develop an evidence-based research for policy decisions to support government in the fight against illicit flow and proliferation of small arms and light weapons (SALW) in the country.
The issue of SALW, according to the National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons, had been a great concern to Ghana and the international community, and, therefore, a solid advocacy and research of the matter would put state... (GunPolicy.org)
Number of Firearms Increased by One Third in Austria in Six Years
26 August 2020
Der Standard
Nicht viele Wirtschaftszweige profitieren von der Corona-Pandemie: Scheidungsanwälte womöglich und die Hersteller von Schutzmasken und Desinfektionsmitteln. Definitiv gestärkt aus der Krise hervorgehen werden die Schusswaffenproduzenten.
Denn die Registrierungen neuer Kurz- und Langfeuerwaffen haben in Österreich seit dem Frühjahr noch einmal kräftig angezogen. Um die Nachfrage zu bedienen, wird in den heimischen Waffenfabriken teils in Dreischichtmodellen rund... (GunPolicy.org)
The Totalitarian Bias of Privately Owned Weapons in Czech Republic
21 August 2020
Zbrojnice.com
In the Czech lands, the civilian possession of weapons is historically inextricably linked to collective and individual protection, as evidenced by its enshrinement for these purposes in the Treaty of St.Wenceslas (1517) and the Regulation on Handguns (1524). The plethora of compact and subcompact self-defence pistols produced during the First Republic shows that this tradition has endured for more than half a millennium. It was only broken by Nazi and Communist... (GunPolicy.org)
South Africa,United States,United Kingdom
Gun Trafficking from US to UK Increasing
12 August 2020
New York Times
Handguns are quietly being smuggled into Britain, despite tough gun-control laws. The police fear that the illegal weapons are contributing to a rise in gang-related crime.
NORTHAMPTON, England — Josh Bains was 28 when he was killed after an argument over a drug debt of about $50 just a few miles from the English village where he grew up — with a gun that had traveled thousands of miles from America.
His was one of a rising number of gun deaths in recent years... (GunPolicy.org)