Armed Europeans

The release of the 2003 Small Arms Survey (which is openly predicated on such arms being an unmitigated evil) has prompted a predictable wave of skeptical commentary.

Though the firearms ownership statistics for the United States have garnered the lion's share of attention, at least in the blogosphere, the figures for Europe are perhaps the more interesting, as is openly acknowledged in the report:

While it is tempting to contrast peace-loving Europe against gunwielding America, careful analysis shows that this is not confirmed by facts. Contrary to assumptions that Europeans are virtually disarmed, the 15 countries of the European Union alone have an estimated 84 million firearms. Of these, 80 percent or 67 million guns are in civilian hands. In countries like Finland, France, and Germany, gun laws are relatively permissive and rates of gun ownership may be about one-half the American level. Regulations tightly limit ownership in only a few European countries, such as the Netherlands, Poland, and the United Kingdom. Across most of the continent public officials acknowledge that unlicensed owners and unregistered guns greatly outnumber legal ones.

The report also notes the incompleteness of available information, and the likelihood that the estimates for Europe are very much on the low side ("Even in countries with traditions of meticulous statistical measurement of their societies, like the Nordic states, statistics on gun registration often cannot withstand rigorous scrutiny. Indeed, several northern European countries have released suspiciously low estimates of illegal gun ownership, which appears to indicate strong bureaucratic resistance to acknowledging the true situation."). Even so, the breakdown of firearms ownership in the EU countries still comes out to 81% civilian, 17% military, and 2% police (Table 2.4).

UPDATE: The AP story about the survey is rather confusingly written, leaving the impression that the survey is an official UN document, which it is not.

Posted by David on July 10, 2003 10:43 AM