Gun Laws of the European Union.
In their War against Terrorism and Criminality, the European Commission has found a new weapon: “A general ban on semi-automatic weapons, strong regulation of blank-firing weapons, stricter rules for museums and collectors, and a closer exchange of information between security authorities and the EU.”. However, this total of new measures is already encountering heavy criticism by not only groups of weapon enthusiasts, users and manufacturers but also by the European Parliament and the Council.
The Firearms Directive is set into place in order regulate and control the legal trade in firearms, the possession of specific types of firearms and eventually battle the illegal trade and use of firearms. To strengthen their position in this battle against the latter two, the European Commission presented a draft consisting of the previous mentioned points. One of the biggest changes would be that semi-automatic weapons will be banned completely for civilians.
These weapons can be divided into two categories, semi-automatics that can be converted into fully-automatic weapons and semi-automatic that resemble fully-automatic weapons. The European Parliament’s opinion on semi-automatic weapons is, somewhat similar to the European Commission, that they should be allowed as long as it is impossible to convert them into fully-automatic weapon. That is why from now on these converted weapons will be totally prohibited. However, the biggest point of disagreement between the parties is the second category. These weapons, according to the European Commission, are the most dangerous weapons since they are created to be used for military purposes and are among the favorites with terrorist organizations. Therefore, the European Commission argues, the maximum magazine size of these semi-automatic weapons should be limited to ten. This led to a lot of resistance by different European Parliament Members and therefor hasn’t been accepted.
The resistance from the European Parliament and its Members is, according to insiders and opponents, influenced and backed-up by the Firearms Lobby. This Firearms Lobby consists off course of Firearms Manufacturers but they aren’t the ones that express their disapproval of the coming changes in Gun Laws. It is mostly pro-gun organizations like Firearms United, the British Shooting Sports Council and the Federation of European Societies of Arms Collectors that are the one with the biggest voice. Their plan of attack consists of sending abusive and insulting emails to European Commission Staff, attending hearings in an unpleasant manner and creating spam attacks on the opposition. Despite all this, these groups gave feedback on the directive, they were asked to do so by the European Parliament.
As we can see from the above mentioned it will be very difficult form the European Commission to get the proposed changes approved any time soon. This is mostly due to the European Parliament and the underlying support they get from the Firearms Lobby. Moreover, it is mostly the far-right parties of specific countries that obstruct legislation. In my opinion they tend to keep too much to old values of self-protection and mask it by arguing that it will come at the cost of hunting of shooting-sports. I think however, that in a world where terrorism has become much more mobile and close to home, tension between different political or ethnic groups can be found much closer to home and borders between EU States are open for everyone that we must leave the protection of ourselves to professionals who are less likely to act in their own political or religious opinion. To achieve this, we also need to, as the European Committee argues, limit the availability of certain firearms to civilians. This may come at the cost of some sports or hobbies but won’t mean the end of them, the people who practice them will have to do with less spectacular weapons. In my opinion this would highly contribute to an European Union with less weapons and illegal weapons which on its part contributes to less of these weapons available for the illegal trade and eventually in less of them in the hands of people who have wrong intentions with them on inhabitants of States within the European Union.
Sources:
D. Mützel, Firearms Directive dispute continues, no compromise in sight, EurActive, 8 dec. 2016, www.euractiv.com.
D. Mützel, Commission’s gun proposal shot down by Parliament committee, EurActive, 21 mrt. 2016, www.euractiv.com.
A. Robert, Commission battles hostile firearms lobby, EurActive, 5 dec. 2016, www.euractiv.com.
M. Banks, Parliament gears up to debate new EU firearms legislation, The Parliament Magazine, 13 jun. 2016, www.theparliamentmagazine.eu.
Council Directive of 18 June 1991 on control of the acquisition and possession of weapons (91/477/EEC), Official Journal of the European Communities, L256/51, 13–09–1991.
