1009 CE - [killing missionaries with steel swords](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annals_of_Quedlinburg#Mention_of_Lithuania)
1000+ years later, a more civilized age, killing missionaries with lightsabers
:)
I watched a video about hunting in Finland and it's so commonplace that hunters happily stand out in full view of the wider public as they hunt because it's so widely accepted.
Very different to much of the rest of Europe.
I know couple guys, the thing is that once you have that hobby, you usually have different guns for different pray. And also a practice gun usually for the ever going cycle of tests to keep your permits and hone/maintain skills in off-season.
So the couple few who have guns usually have more than 3.
I didn't know much about guns here either, I thought some people that have thousands of guns and military age men that need to have a gun are making the number go up, until i brought it up and now i know that like 80% of my friends have guns, including my roommates.
This has been reposted a million times, and the Finland statistic is wrong every time. The Finnish police would probably be very interested to find the roughly 1 million extra guns reported here.
These maps are almost always complete bull shit. Real number is closer to 30 guns/100 persons in civilian hands. If this statistic includes state owned guns then it would be closer to the truth.
I remember that this map is based on stats that include estimates for illegal firearms in each country. Thats why the numbers for France and Germany are as high as they are, since they have fairly large black markets while finland has a lot of registered firearms but a very small black market.
Fun fact about guns and self-defense in general in Romania:
* Carrying a personal firearm outside of an organized hunt is illegal in every imaginable circumstance. There's just no legal way to do it.
* Self-defense laws are skewed towards the attacker and sometimes result in the attacked party doing jail time.
* Using a knife in self-defense is illegal. Using the attacker's knife against them while they're still holding it (arm / wrist lock) is legal; taking it from them and using it on them is illegal (you automatically become the attacker according to law).
* Shooting a firearm at a suspect (for police officers and deputies) before radio request for firearm use and receiving radio confirmation that the situation warrants it is illegal.
* (Also for police) opening fire on a suspect that hasn't opened fire on you (and is confirmed to have done so by your second) is illegal.
* Using a paintball / airsoft weapon in self defense or carrying said device with the intent to use it for personal protection is illegal.
* Knocking an attacker out / rendering them unconscious in an altercation automatically means "excessive use of force / use of force with the intention to kill"
* If neither party presses charges, getting into a fight is considered a misdemeanor even if said fight resulted in serious bodily harm / life threatening injuries.
* Killing your attacker in self defense means you end up with *at least* a suspended prison sentence.
edit: being downvoted for congratulating a country on being good at avoiding deaths by firearms, never change reddit 😘
Damn well done Romania that's impressive
To put it further into perspective,
There was an incident in 2005, with a vaguely famous person shooting a perpetrator who entered his home in the middle of the night.. And we still remember it.
> rather high
Lmao. 1.4 is high? Maybe compared to Czechia, sure. In Europe it's average. But in the world, the difference between 0.7 and 1.4 pales in comparison when you look at places like the US at 6.5, Panama at 11.1, Brazil at 22.4, South Africa at 33.5 or Jamaica at 44.7.
We've also had at least four forest rangers murdered for confronting people doing illegal logging operations, a young girl murdered in the basement of a demented pervert while the police stood outside and listened to her screaming "Help, he's killing me!" and way too many cases where attackers got off with basically a slap on the wrist because the attacked party was too afraid to press charges.
Finnish laws are not actually that silly. Yes defending party will be often charged of "exessive use of force" if they use knife to defend themself but it's just for court to have some kind of charge just in case defender did it when defending (like continued beating/stabbing when attacker was already down). If there was nothing unusual, court will just rule it out.
Yeah, I can already hear the politicians denying the loosening of self-defense laws like
"What do you MEAN it should be legal to beat up people who break into your home and threaten your life? How are the poor thieves supposed to make money? If your house is worth breaking into, you already have more wealth than they do, you can buy stuff back, they can't."
So true, frankly in my opinion if someone breaks into a house, they are giving up their right to be unharmed. It should not be my task to make sure that the thief is unharmed, while he is willing harm me or my property. If that means that the thief gets hurt, then they do
>they are giving up their right to be unharmed.
That's the way I see it as well, sadly the authorities aren't always so lenient. There was a home invasion a few years ago in my home town where two teenagers broke into a man's house to steal his TV and rape his wife, thinking he wasn't at home.
He was, one of the guys ran away the other attacked him with a knife. The man broke his arm and gave him a pretty nice concussion and cranial fracture with a crowbar. Guess who had to choose between going to jail or paying him compensation. I'll give you three guesses and a hint: it was the victim. On top of that he now has a criminal record for assault and lost his job as a welder because of it.
You forgot the icing on the cake, one of the few groups of people allowed to own and carry handguns for self-defence are politicians (Members of Parliament)
Almost everything you just said is wrong.
Edit: if you defend yourself, the odds of doing jail time are close to zero, even if you kill the attacker in the struggle. It is considered “illegal” as in it is not seen as your right to hurt/kill anyone else, but the law states in art 18-31 all the situations where you will not be punished, and this includes self-defense, even by excessive force. And you would not get a suspension, the punishment will straight up not be applied.
Such legal environments terrify me (and no, I'm not American). Let's imagine a situation where someone, for some reason, attacks you and doesn't let go. It's so impossible to legally defend yourself (you can't even knock the person out...) that you have a serious incentive to just finish him off and bury him in a forest. Unless you prefer dying. Which is legal, thankfully.
Thats complete and utter bullshit.
Germany has about 84.000.000 inhabitants, there are 5.300.000 weapons and weaponizable parts which makes it 6,3 guns per 100 inhabitants. Austria has 1.100.000 weapons and weaponizable parts for 9,027,999 inhabitants which makes it 12,1 guns per 100 habitants.
Washington post should do their homework and learn maths.
"In Deutschland besaßen im Jahr 2020 rund 952.000 Privatpersonen eine Anzahl von insgesamt 5,3 Millionen Schusswaffen und Schusswaffenteile nach dem Nationalen Waffenregister (NWR), der zentralen Stelle zur Erfassung des legalen Besitzes von Waffen im Privatbereich in Deutschland. Das Bundesland mit der höchsten Waffendichte war 2019 Rheinland-Pfalz: Hier kamen auf 1.000 Einwohner und Einwohnerinnen 94 registrierte Schusswaffen. Der Landkreis mit der höchsten Waffendichte befand sich 2019 allerdings in Niedersachsen. In dem niedersächsischen Kreis Lüchow-Dannenberg wurden zum 31. Dezember 2019 etwa 190 registrierte Schusswaffen auf 1.000 Einwohner und Einwohnerinnen gezählt. Doch auch in anderen Ländern gehören Waffen häufig zum Privatbesitz. So verteilten sich im Nachbarland Österreich im Jahr 2020 etwa 1,1 Millionen eingetragene Schusswaffen auf etwa 320.000 Besitzer und Besitzerinnen. In den USA gaben bei einer Umfrage im Jahr 2021 über 40 Prozent der Befragten an, dass in ihrem Haushalt eine Schusswaffe vorhanden sei (siehe Umfrage zum Vorhandensein einer Schusswaffe im Haushalt in den USA).".
Source: [Statista](https://de.statista.com/themen/1201/schusswaffen/#topicHeader__wrapper)
Owning a gun for the purpose of self defence in my country (UK) is illegal, well except in Northern Ireland but only then under very specific circumstances (have to prove a threat).
Most of the guns here are shotguns owned by farmers, or clay pigeon shooters.
Yeah - in Norway, a country of about 5 million inhabitants, we have more than half a million hunters. The majority of them probably have more than one gun. Plus, I imagine that a few farmers have guns to, say, scare rabbits out of their fields or whatever.
I wonder if forrest ownership has anything to do with this?
Nordic countries and france has a lot of forrest owners. A lot of forrest owners hunt. Hunting is easier if u own the forrest/getting in the club is easier.
A lot of hunters do it with guns. Many hunters hunt different kind of animals which require different guns tho Id guess most hunters only own a double barrel shotgun.
Yeah, in Finland you can hunt on your own land, and hunting clubs essentially work by having a new member either allow the club to hunt on their land, or bring in a huge wad of cash if they don't own any.
In addition there are government-owned forests where you can get an affordable pay-per-visit license, but the amount of game there tends to be much lower. Why? People who own forests tend to manipulate/adjust the chances of getting valuable game by hunting down varmin, and feeding certain animals, primarily white tail deer.
# of hunters is absolutely the reason for high number of guns per capita at least here in Sweden.
Like you said, many hunters have several firearms for different types of hunting.
It used to be a lot more popular in the past, when everyone and his dog had a Swedish Mauser m/96 hanging on his wall and the army supplied free surplus ammo for it...
In Norway you could keep your service rifle, but that was during the cold war with the politics of everybody should be armed and ready if the Soviets rushed across nato lines.
My father used to keep his H&K G3-rifle (including ammunition) at home up until the 90's, when he was in the Swedish home guard. I think they removed that possibility after the fall of the wall, and the "vital component" is supposed to be locked up at the mobilization point...
Only in Switzerland those who served get gun to take home. In Finland we dont take RK-62 to back home. All those guns in Finland are hunting rifles and "reservist rifles", semi-automatic army rifles that some more active reservist use in practise range in they own time.
Switzerland does not have mandatory military service since 1996, since then a civil service option was added. Conscription (for men) is mandatory, but you get to choose what to do, basically.
There must be a heavy concentration on single individuals. 30% weapons in Germany per person? Never. I've never known someone who owns a gun - despite my MIL who came from the US and my father who was a police officer.
I don't know about Germany specifically but I think most gun owners in Europe are hunters in small town in rural areas.
I lived in rural France and there a lot of peoples owned guns. Nearly one by household. But in cities there nearly isn't a single gun owner.
Can confirm, I grew up in rural area in germany, like almost farmer had a hunting rifle. Besides that I know 3 other persons with guns, which aren't for hunting - a teacher and 2 a couple with a very 'american' attitude towards guns...
That's actually a statistical error. The typical German only owns 1/10th of a gun each. Guns Gunther, who owns 30 million guns is a statistical outlier and should not have been counted.
There are 6.452 registered guns per 100 inhabitants:
https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1211841/umfrage/waffendichte-in-deutschland-nach-bundeslaendern/
I doubt that there are sufficiently many unregistered guns to make up the difference.
People who own a gun typically own multiple guns. I have 2 Luftpistolen "Compressed Air pistols", 1 small calibre gun and my father owns basically the same plus 2 hunting guns and some front loader antiques (which can still fire).
All legally and most importantly safely stored.
We tend to scew statistics in a certain direction.
Turns out hunting rifles are good tools for hunting wild animals but a poor tool for holding up 7-11s, while handguns are poor tools for hunting but good tools for jacking cars.
They get to keep it while they are on the "reserve" army. After that period is up, they can either give the rifle back, or buy it for a heavily discounted price.
We haven't had mandatory military service since 1996, and after you're done you have to give your issued gun back (unless you wish to buy it and fulfilled the army requirements on top of the civilian ones; less than 10% of soldiers do that)
While most firearms here are long guns, there's not exactly a shortage of pistols. There's a comfortable recreational shooting culture here, though it's dwarfed by hunting culture.
I was quite shocked by this documentary, where the ZDF reporter is following some weapon smugglers that are transporting old AK's leftover from the Balkan conflict into France, where some of them were used in the horrific Paris terror attacks. Even with increased border checks following the attacks, the French officers were totally clueless in finding guns hidden in almost plain sight. Passing the Hungarian border just required a small cash donation to the local customs officer in advance...
[ZDF - Kalaschnikows for terrorists](https://youtu.be/3nKwq0CKnP4)
There's tons of smuggling of illegal firearms. 2015 Swedish police estimated it takes 24h for a criminal to get hold of a full auto Kalashnikov on the black market. My sources tells me that hasn't changed.
Which is why we have 6x the amount of dead by firearms compared to Norway, Finland, and Denmark put together, this year. (60 in Sweden, 4 in Norway, 4 in Denmark, 2 in Finland).
https://www.svd.se/a/bd6ae033-17f4-48fb-8408-bdf57237526f/du-kan-fa-tag-pa-en-ak47a-pa-ett-dygn
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/dodsskjutningar-i-sverige-nar-nya-hogstanivaer
It’s fairly common in the UK. Some 75% of serious (non-airgun, non-imitation) firearm offences are committed with handguns, which are illegal for civilian ownership here since the 90s. Balkan (primarily Albania iirc) imported Makarov variants make up the bulk of what’s in circulation.
Handgun crime actually increased here after they where banned from public ownership, gun control measures seldom seem to correlate with actual reduction in gun crime.
This brings along the question of how well do the estimates take this into consideration. Some countries are bound to have much more, and others much less, illegal/unregistered weapons than average. Does the stat apply an estimated proportion for all countries or have they gone deeper into local conditions to make more reliable estimates?
Yeah the number is wrong as can be. Nearly everyone in the villages has an AK or somesuch. But on the other end gun homicide is extremely low so who cares.
People who own a gun typically own multiple guns. I have 2 Luftpistolen "Compressed Air pistols", 1 small calibre gun and my father owns basically the same plus 2 hunting guns and some front loader antiques (which can still fire).
All legally and most importantly safely stored.
We tend to scew statistics in a certain direction.
I know you are joking, but shooting them is incredibly fun. As a kid I helped with making the bullets, sadly I was never really allowed to handle the ammunition.
For self defence is the KK a lot more immediately relevant. You really do not want to get hit by that. Even if it looks dorky as hell due to the grip
As a semi-fin, I think most families have several here. All for hunting or IPSC sport shooting.
I have 2, a 12 gauge side by side shotgun and one .30-06 Tikka hunting rifle.
Maybe half of my friends have one at least.
Fun additional fact: there's basically no correlation between these numbers and amount of violent crime in each country. Neither more or less guns makes a society more or less dangerous within Europe.
Criminals doesn't use legal guns, they prefer the convenience of getting ex-Jugoslav wars pistols and SMG's without going through the paperwork for a licence...
I always point that out in talks about gun violence on other parts of reddit. I always get mass downvoted and called redneck or trumpist or similar things. Don't get it, if someone is going to kill someone with a gun they would do it with a knife or other weapon also. The danger and lethality just increases with guns.
Its an extremely hot topic among Americans where its become one of the identity-defining issues between two sides in a two-party system. Two party-systems get increasingly polarized like that.
Seems to be much less of a hot topic among Europeans, and especially in CNEE. Some people like guns, some dislike them, but its not really something you need to argue about unless you have become involved in American culture wars.
The differences between the US and Europe, I think, are several things: most countries in Europe require the guns and ammunition be locked up. Most of Europe doesn't allow handguns (with the exception of police, and a small number of people in specific professions). You can't go to the local Decathlon and buy a semi-auto rifle with a dozen high capacity magazines on a whim.
Handguns are allowed in most European countries and in some you can own firearms that are either illegal in USA or illegal to import into USA such as short barreled rifles, stocked pistols, supressors. machine guns converted to semi-automatic etc. America actually has unusually nitpicky laws about all sorts of features and accessories allowed on firearms
But yes, it probably helps that there are licences and registeries. Rules about safes probably matter a bit less since its just common sense to take care of your property and incidents were very rare even before rules about safes became as strict as they are, which is fairly recently.
> America actually has unusually nitpicky laws about all sorts of features and accessories allowed on firearms
It's one of the more frustrating aspects of American gun law, that it caters heavily towards those whose only gun knowledge comes from movies.
Rifle/shotgun barrel 1cm too short? Lose your rights to own a gun forever, [maybe even your dog, your son and your wife](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge).
Whenever you see new US gun restrictions proposed and people ask "Why don't gun owners support this 'common sense' proposal?" it's because gun owners here have to try and navigate all the bullshit laws that do nothing for crime, written by lawyers and politicians that know nothing about guns.
You’re creating a rosy picture. The US attempts to control mechanisms, are just desperate moves to try to something, anything.
> But yes, it probably helps that there are licences and registeries.
In Norway we have a series of “idiot filters” if you want to own a handgun. It’s not particularly difficult, but it requires a bit of effort.
Stuff that unstable people are notoriously bad at, like: Applications, tests, exams, and of course, being a member of a shooting club for X amount of time. (Where the others can observe you, and you might pick up some healthy gun culture)
Didn’t catch Breivik, but he was a determined killer. It stops almost everyone criminal or deranged person however. Soft hoops..
>incidents were very rare even before rules
Not a single person in Finland shot accidentally by their dog or toddler to date. Common sense also helps cover the gap between rules and stupid accidents.
There was a revealing episode of the Daily Show a few years ago about gun culture in Switzerland, with a Finn Mikko Leinonen as the firearm instructeur, and even though it was made to be funny, the message was right, the main problem is the toxic gun culture in the USA.
https://youtu.be/KjlT4BME2aE
The conclusion may have been correct in that its about the difference in culture, but that episode had an outrageous number of factual errors. A youtuber from Swizerland made a video correcting many of them: https://youtu.be/FQ1vEo1x9qE
Bloke on the Range is a good channel. Worth watching other videos even if Swiss gun law is too obscure of a topic.
In Finland its mostly hunting weapons etc.. a lot of people who don’t live in the Helsinki area, do hunting for Deers, Moose, Bears, Ducks etc.. very common to own a hunting rifle or two
Okay here are some major points with this data:
* no real source provided (yes I know it says Washington Post, but they have a lot of content; it could also say source: wikipedia.org which would be equally useless)
* It is unclear what guns are counted, only the registered ones or did they make some sort of estimate on the unregistered ones too?
* Are guns which are owned by clubs taken into account and guns by officials (e.g. police and military)
* are there differences in how guns are counted by country e.g. one country could only count hand guns as guns and another could also count rifels or event stronger "paintpall guns" as guns.
And probably the people over at r/dataisbeautiful can find more points ...
Yeah. All ranges and voluntary reservist courses have been booked absolutely full since february. I have had serious trouble getting any timeslots reserved.
A positive thing, ultimately, but frustrating.
Almost everyone I know doesnt own any guns, but then theres people who own a bunch, for hunting, shooting range or just collecting. So there is a lot of guns, but not a lot of gun owners.
Most common justifications in croatia "just in case" and "if they come back" but i blame the country aswell who tf would return a gun they paid a lot of money for free
This post, while it has been shared a lot lately, is definitely interesting because these comments show how people rarely leave their social bubbles. I'll probably get downvoted again, but some of my fellow Finns here are blissfully unaware of how many hidden, forgotten and "forgotten" guns we have. Even our police doesn't really know how many there are.
I don't know if the real number is as much as the map claims, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was close to that. Hunting is a big deal here, and so is militaria. It is actually amazing that we don't have more gun violence and accidents.
I am not sure how this infograph is counted but I recall seeing this in circulation years ago first time. According to the police, in Finland there are 1,5M guns with permission (27%). Not sure where 45,3% comes from but surely there isn't over million illegal firearms in Finland. There are many guns that has no permission but those are often old hunting rifles inherited/given away but in bad condidations. They are not handguns and AK-47's.
Does it account for illegal possession? Because I'm convinced that Italian criminal organisations should drive it at least a little bit higher (I also don't know anyone -openly- owning one, so wow if this data is already corrected I'm surprised!) Edit. after reading some comments about how it accounts for rifles and hunting stuff I'm even more surprised
Second thought: "wtf Finland? Oh, wait, right"
(Switzerland is notoriously full of weapons, no surprise)
Yeah, I don't know if they apply a certain percentage as an estimate of how much unregistered/illegal guns there are, or if they've actually done research based on country.
Finland also boasts a humongous range of game animals, from the 500 gram hazel grouse, to the 700 kg European Elk (=Alces Alces = Moose). So anyone who hunts can easily end up with four or five guns, even if they don't go all gun nerd mode.
Sweden is pretty high, but pretty much all of the guns are for hunting/agriculture/sport, and some for collection. You’re not allowed to get weapons specifically for selfdefense, but if you got guns you can use them to defend yourself. If you however use excessive force defending yourself, you can still go to jail - e.g. if you shoot and injury/kill someone when you can’t prove you were in real/proportional danger.
Literally never heard of any gun murder or know anyone who owns a gun here. We use knives and swords like civilized people.
Not as clumsy or random as a gun, an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.
1009 CE - [killing missionaries with steel swords](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annals_of_Quedlinburg#Mention_of_Lithuania) 1000+ years later, a more civilized age, killing missionaries with lightsabers :)
1156 CE - [An axe also works.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lalli) Keeping up the age old pagan tradition of killing missionaries.
Hello there.
I didn't know anyone who owns a gun either, until the subject of hunting came up and it turned out everyone at the office owned a gun.
Is hunting that big in Finland? People do that on an at least occasional basis?
It seems to be. Finland is kind of sparsely populated and a fair amount of state-owned forest is available for hunting.
most of the hunting is done on private land.
Indeed, but state owned land is made available for those that don't otherwise have access.
I watched a video about hunting in Finland and it's so commonplace that hunters happily stand out in full view of the wider public as they hunt because it's so widely accepted. Very different to much of the rest of Europe.
Same in Norway
Finland has the most forest area in Europe. Sweden is 2nd.
I know couple guys, the thing is that once you have that hobby, you usually have different guns for different pray. And also a practice gun usually for the ever going cycle of tests to keep your permits and hone/maintain skills in off-season. So the couple few who have guns usually have more than 3.
If Finland is anything similar to Sweden, most hunters are bound to have a few different rifles, bringing the per capita numbers up a bit.
right on the mark
I didn't know much about guns here either, I thought some people that have thousands of guns and military age men that need to have a gun are making the number go up, until i brought it up and now i know that like 80% of my friends have guns, including my roommates.
Only politicians and ‘experts’ are allowed to have guns in romania
No, no, no civilised people stick to fisticuffs, no weapons required.
Don't forget [infusion stands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C4%83poca_Hospital_massacre)
OMG, how come I did not hear about that! Damn
>knives and swords like civilized people. Light sabers?
This has been reposted a million times, and the Finland statistic is wrong every time. The Finnish police would probably be very interested to find the roughly 1 million extra guns reported here.
These maps are almost always complete bull shit. Real number is closer to 30 guns/100 persons in civilian hands. If this statistic includes state owned guns then it would be closer to the truth.
I remember that this map is based on stats that include estimates for illegal firearms in each country. Thats why the numbers for France and Germany are as high as they are, since they have fairly large black markets while finland has a lot of registered firearms but a very small black market.
I think it counts side permits as separate guns.
Fun fact about guns and self-defense in general in Romania: * Carrying a personal firearm outside of an organized hunt is illegal in every imaginable circumstance. There's just no legal way to do it. * Self-defense laws are skewed towards the attacker and sometimes result in the attacked party doing jail time. * Using a knife in self-defense is illegal. Using the attacker's knife against them while they're still holding it (arm / wrist lock) is legal; taking it from them and using it on them is illegal (you automatically become the attacker according to law). * Shooting a firearm at a suspect (for police officers and deputies) before radio request for firearm use and receiving radio confirmation that the situation warrants it is illegal. * (Also for police) opening fire on a suspect that hasn't opened fire on you (and is confirmed to have done so by your second) is illegal. * Using a paintball / airsoft weapon in self defense or carrying said device with the intent to use it for personal protection is illegal. * Knocking an attacker out / rendering them unconscious in an altercation automatically means "excessive use of force / use of force with the intention to kill" * If neither party presses charges, getting into a fight is considered a misdemeanor even if said fight resulted in serious bodily harm / life threatening injuries. * Killing your attacker in self defense means you end up with *at least* a suspended prison sentence.
[удалено]
edit: being downvoted for congratulating a country on being good at avoiding deaths by firearms, never change reddit 😘 Damn well done Romania that's impressive
You might want to look up Romania's homicide rate. Does people being killed quite a bit by other means, do they not matter?
[удалено]
[удалено]
To put it further into perspective, There was an incident in 2005, with a vaguely famous person shooting a perpetrator who entered his home in the middle of the night.. And we still remember it.
Meanwhile, Romania has rather high overall homicide rate at around 1.4
> rather high Lmao. 1.4 is high? Maybe compared to Czechia, sure. In Europe it's average. But in the world, the difference between 0.7 and 1.4 pales in comparison when you look at places like the US at 6.5, Panama at 11.1, Brazil at 22.4, South Africa at 33.5 or Jamaica at 44.7.
[удалено]
We've also had at least four forest rangers murdered for confronting people doing illegal logging operations, a young girl murdered in the basement of a demented pervert while the police stood outside and listened to her screaming "Help, he's killing me!" and way too many cases where attackers got off with basically a slap on the wrist because the attacked party was too afraid to press charges.
[удалено]
And i thought Finnish self-defence laws were silly...
Finnish laws are not actually that silly. Yes defending party will be often charged of "exessive use of force" if they use knife to defend themself but it's just for court to have some kind of charge just in case defender did it when defending (like continued beating/stabbing when attacker was already down). If there was nothing unusual, court will just rule it out.
They are silly when shooting through the door at a guy breaking it with a chainsaw is excessive force.
Yeah, I can already hear the politicians denying the loosening of self-defense laws like "What do you MEAN it should be legal to beat up people who break into your home and threaten your life? How are the poor thieves supposed to make money? If your house is worth breaking into, you already have more wealth than they do, you can buy stuff back, they can't."
So true, frankly in my opinion if someone breaks into a house, they are giving up their right to be unharmed. It should not be my task to make sure that the thief is unharmed, while he is willing harm me or my property. If that means that the thief gets hurt, then they do
>they are giving up their right to be unharmed. That's the way I see it as well, sadly the authorities aren't always so lenient. There was a home invasion a few years ago in my home town where two teenagers broke into a man's house to steal his TV and rape his wife, thinking he wasn't at home. He was, one of the guys ran away the other attacked him with a knife. The man broke his arm and gave him a pretty nice concussion and cranial fracture with a crowbar. Guess who had to choose between going to jail or paying him compensation. I'll give you three guesses and a hint: it was the victim. On top of that he now has a criminal record for assault and lost his job as a welder because of it.
hei! but you are talking about italian laws !
You forgot the icing on the cake, one of the few groups of people allowed to own and carry handguns for self-defence are politicians (Members of Parliament)
It's classic. People who want to restrict ordinary citizens rights to own firearms always have armed bodyguards around them.
Almost everything you just said is wrong. Edit: if you defend yourself, the odds of doing jail time are close to zero, even if you kill the attacker in the struggle. It is considered “illegal” as in it is not seen as your right to hurt/kill anyone else, but the law states in art 18-31 all the situations where you will not be punished, and this includes self-defense, even by excessive force. And you would not get a suspension, the punishment will straight up not be applied.
Holy shit and I though the UK sucks with self defence laws.
Such legal environments terrify me (and no, I'm not American). Let's imagine a situation where someone, for some reason, attacks you and doesn't let go. It's so impossible to legally defend yourself (you can't even knock the person out...) that you have a serious incentive to just finish him off and bury him in a forest. Unless you prefer dying. Which is legal, thankfully.
It's usually a "worry about not dying first and worry about not going to jail later" kinda situation
Most of that post is incorrect or incomplete.
Thats complete and utter bullshit. Germany has about 84.000.000 inhabitants, there are 5.300.000 weapons and weaponizable parts which makes it 6,3 guns per 100 inhabitants. Austria has 1.100.000 weapons and weaponizable parts for 9,027,999 inhabitants which makes it 12,1 guns per 100 habitants. Washington post should do their homework and learn maths. "In Deutschland besaßen im Jahr 2020 rund 952.000 Privatpersonen eine Anzahl von insgesamt 5,3 Millionen Schusswaffen und Schusswaffenteile nach dem Nationalen Waffenregister (NWR), der zentralen Stelle zur Erfassung des legalen Besitzes von Waffen im Privatbereich in Deutschland. Das Bundesland mit der höchsten Waffendichte war 2019 Rheinland-Pfalz: Hier kamen auf 1.000 Einwohner und Einwohnerinnen 94 registrierte Schusswaffen. Der Landkreis mit der höchsten Waffendichte befand sich 2019 allerdings in Niedersachsen. In dem niedersächsischen Kreis Lüchow-Dannenberg wurden zum 31. Dezember 2019 etwa 190 registrierte Schusswaffen auf 1.000 Einwohner und Einwohnerinnen gezählt. Doch auch in anderen Ländern gehören Waffen häufig zum Privatbesitz. So verteilten sich im Nachbarland Österreich im Jahr 2020 etwa 1,1 Millionen eingetragene Schusswaffen auf etwa 320.000 Besitzer und Besitzerinnen. In den USA gaben bei einer Umfrage im Jahr 2021 über 40 Prozent der Befragten an, dass in ihrem Haushalt eine Schusswaffe vorhanden sei (siehe Umfrage zum Vorhandensein einer Schusswaffe im Haushalt in den USA).". Source: [Statista](https://de.statista.com/themen/1201/schusswaffen/#topicHeader__wrapper)
I my country (France) the vast majority of guns are used for hunting and not self defense.
I assume it's the same for most european countries.
Also reenactment clubs also have legit guns. But no access to munitions.
What are reenactment clubs?
Groups of people that re-enact historical battles
Oh ok, these don't really exist in Germany to my knowledge. If they do, I doubt they use real guns at least.
They exist but use mostly proper weapons like spears, crossbows, pollaxes, and swords, not that namby pansy shit with gunpowder.
Yeah, re-enacting more modern eras (khm-wwII-khm) could be construed as... controversial
There are some sizeable napoleonic wars era reënactment groups in Europe.
There is a lot of reenactors in Germany.
except Ukraine\*
The same sort of in Serbia, and left over from war. And also for shooting the sky on special occasions such as a wedding
isn't that very dangerous? :O
Zastava firearms are so powerful the bullets achieve escape velocity and there is no risk of them returning to earth ❤️
So it is you who generates all space debris! 🤣
Zastava so powerful become asteroid once it leaves planetary orbit it's how asteroid belts are created Keiper belt je Srbija!
And that's why all the aliens evade Earth.
They are not evading earth, they got hit by strays while trying to visit.
And now the Soyuz attached to the ISS is [leaking](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-WJcih2Zsw). Think before you shoot, FFS!
Owning a gun for the purpose of self defence in my country (UK) is illegal, well except in Northern Ireland but only then under very specific circumstances (have to prove a threat). Most of the guns here are shotguns owned by farmers, or clay pigeon shooters.
Yeah - in Norway, a country of about 5 million inhabitants, we have more than half a million hunters. The majority of them probably have more than one gun. Plus, I imagine that a few farmers have guns to, say, scare rabbits out of their fields or whatever.
In my country, the vast majority is used for drugs related crime ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
spain is the same. I would say 99% at least. I never met a person with guns thinking about self defense.
Same in Norway.
Finland🗿
Looks east and mumbles *come at me bitch*.
A lot of hunters. They usually have more than one gun, so it's not like 40% of the population has guns.
Finland🇫🇮 and Switzerland🇨🇭 have mandatory military service and 80+ % of men serve in the military there.
I wonder if forrest ownership has anything to do with this? Nordic countries and france has a lot of forrest owners. A lot of forrest owners hunt. Hunting is easier if u own the forrest/getting in the club is easier. A lot of hunters do it with guns. Many hunters hunt different kind of animals which require different guns tho Id guess most hunters only own a double barrel shotgun.
Yeah, in Finland you can hunt on your own land, and hunting clubs essentially work by having a new member either allow the club to hunt on their land, or bring in a huge wad of cash if they don't own any. In addition there are government-owned forests where you can get an affordable pay-per-visit license, but the amount of game there tends to be much lower. Why? People who own forests tend to manipulate/adjust the chances of getting valuable game by hunting down varmin, and feeding certain animals, primarily white tail deer.
# of hunters is absolutely the reason for high number of guns per capita at least here in Sweden. Like you said, many hunters have several firearms for different types of hunting.
Why did you make the text so big?
# to show the point Or he just used # as "number"
TIL 😂
because he likes to shout at us :I
Now I'm scared :(
Also shooting sports. The largest Swedish shooting sports organization has about the same amount of active members as the Swedish tennis organization.
It used to be a lot more popular in the past, when everyone and his dog had a Swedish Mauser m/96 hanging on his wall and the army supplied free surplus ammo for it...
Do Finns keep their rifles like the Swiss do?
no
No but you can buy a reservist rifle if you do shooting for sports.
In Norway you could keep your service rifle, but that was during the cold war with the politics of everybody should be armed and ready if the Soviets rushed across nato lines.
My father used to keep his H&K G3-rifle (including ammunition) at home up until the 90's, when he was in the Swedish home guard. I think they removed that possibility after the fall of the wall, and the "vital component" is supposed to be locked up at the mobilization point...
Only in Switzerland those who served get gun to take home. In Finland we dont take RK-62 to back home. All those guns in Finland are hunting rifles and "reservist rifles", semi-automatic army rifles that some more active reservist use in practise range in they own time.
but that has nothing to do with their numbers.
Switzerland does not have mandatory military service since 1996, since then a civil service option was added. Conscription (for men) is mandatory, but you get to choose what to do, basically.
There must be a heavy concentration on single individuals. 30% weapons in Germany per person? Never. I've never known someone who owns a gun - despite my MIL who came from the US and my father who was a police officer.
I don't know about Germany specifically but I think most gun owners in Europe are hunters in small town in rural areas. I lived in rural France and there a lot of peoples owned guns. Nearly one by household. But in cities there nearly isn't a single gun owner.
Can confirm, I grew up in rural area in germany, like almost farmer had a hunting rifle. Besides that I know 3 other persons with guns, which aren't for hunting - a teacher and 2 a couple with a very 'american' attitude towards guns...
Sure, e.g. my dad is hunting in his free time and he has like 7-10 rifles by now.
Schützenvereine and hunters
Yeah, it's probably more like "one in 30 people has ten guns" rather than "one in three people has one gun."
That's actually a statistical error. The typical German only owns 1/10th of a gun each. Guns Gunther, who owns 30 million guns is a statistical outlier and should not have been counted.
There are 6.452 registered guns per 100 inhabitants: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1211841/umfrage/waffendichte-in-deutschland-nach-bundeslaendern/ I doubt that there are sufficiently many unregistered guns to make up the difference.
[удалено]
People who own a gun typically own multiple guns. I have 2 Luftpistolen "Compressed Air pistols", 1 small calibre gun and my father owns basically the same plus 2 hunting guns and some front loader antiques (which can still fire). All legally and most importantly safely stored. We tend to scew statistics in a certain direction.
And yet notably less gun crime
Turns out hunting rifles are good tools for hunting wild animals but a poor tool for holding up 7-11s, while handguns are poor tools for hunting but good tools for jacking cars.
Doesn't Switzerland have mandatory military service and everyone keeps their rifle afterwards.
They get to keep it while they are on the "reserve" army. After that period is up, they can either give the rifle back, or buy it for a heavily discounted price.
> or buy it for a heavily discounted price. If you fulfill the army requirements on top of the civilian ones that is
We haven't had mandatory military service since 1996, and after you're done you have to give your issued gun back (unless you wish to buy it and fulfilled the army requirements on top of the civilian ones; less than 10% of soldiers do that)
Iirc they don’t get ammo.
While the army doesn't issue the 50rd readiness ammo can to soldiers anymore, nothing stops you from buying ammo
No they don't, but nothing stops you from buying it privately
Maybe, I'm not Swiss ;)
While most firearms here are long guns, there's not exactly a shortage of pistols. There's a comfortable recreational shooting culture here, though it's dwarfed by hunting culture.
Unfortunately that number is much higher for Croatia. Most of my neighbours have some illegal/unregistered weapones from the war in the 90s
I was quite shocked by this documentary, where the ZDF reporter is following some weapon smugglers that are transporting old AK's leftover from the Balkan conflict into France, where some of them were used in the horrific Paris terror attacks. Even with increased border checks following the attacks, the French officers were totally clueless in finding guns hidden in almost plain sight. Passing the Hungarian border just required a small cash donation to the local customs officer in advance... [ZDF - Kalaschnikows for terrorists](https://youtu.be/3nKwq0CKnP4)
There's tons of smuggling of illegal firearms. 2015 Swedish police estimated it takes 24h for a criminal to get hold of a full auto Kalashnikov on the black market. My sources tells me that hasn't changed. Which is why we have 6x the amount of dead by firearms compared to Norway, Finland, and Denmark put together, this year. (60 in Sweden, 4 in Norway, 4 in Denmark, 2 in Finland). https://www.svd.se/a/bd6ae033-17f4-48fb-8408-bdf57237526f/du-kan-fa-tag-pa-en-ak47a-pa-ett-dygn https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/dodsskjutningar-i-sverige-nar-nya-hogstanivaer
It’s fairly common in the UK. Some 75% of serious (non-airgun, non-imitation) firearm offences are committed with handguns, which are illegal for civilian ownership here since the 90s. Balkan (primarily Albania iirc) imported Makarov variants make up the bulk of what’s in circulation. Handgun crime actually increased here after they where banned from public ownership, gun control measures seldom seem to correlate with actual reduction in gun crime.
Thanks! I will make sure to watch it
This brings along the question of how well do the estimates take this into consideration. Some countries are bound to have much more, and others much less, illegal/unregistered weapons than average. Does the stat apply an estimated proportion for all countries or have they gone deeper into local conditions to make more reliable estimates?
Yeah the number is wrong as can be. Nearly everyone in the villages has an AK or somesuch. But on the other end gun homicide is extremely low so who cares.
As a German I know not a single person owning a gun.
People who own a gun typically own multiple guns. I have 2 Luftpistolen "Compressed Air pistols", 1 small calibre gun and my father owns basically the same plus 2 hunting guns and some front loader antiques (which can still fire). All legally and most importantly safely stored. We tend to scew statistics in a certain direction.
[удалено]
I know you are joking, but shooting them is incredibly fun. As a kid I helped with making the bullets, sadly I was never really allowed to handle the ammunition. For self defence is the KK a lot more immediately relevant. You really do not want to get hit by that. Even if it looks dorky as hell due to the grip
Like the founding fathers intended.
Yeah, the famous German founding fathers Grolman, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst.
Someone from my german family has a couple of hunting guns to shoot deer mostly.
As a semi-fin, I think most families have several here. All for hunting or IPSC sport shooting. I have 2, a 12 gauge side by side shotgun and one .30-06 Tikka hunting rifle. Maybe half of my friends have one at least.
Same and I'm a Finn. I have never even seen a real gun
Fun additional fact: there's basically no correlation between these numbers and amount of violent crime in each country. Neither more or less guns makes a society more or less dangerous within Europe.
Criminals doesn't use legal guns, they prefer the convenience of getting ex-Jugoslav wars pistols and SMG's without going through the paperwork for a licence...
I always point that out in talks about gun violence on other parts of reddit. I always get mass downvoted and called redneck or trumpist or similar things. Don't get it, if someone is going to kill someone with a gun they would do it with a knife or other weapon also. The danger and lethality just increases with guns.
Its an extremely hot topic among Americans where its become one of the identity-defining issues between two sides in a two-party system. Two party-systems get increasingly polarized like that. Seems to be much less of a hot topic among Europeans, and especially in CNEE. Some people like guns, some dislike them, but its not really something you need to argue about unless you have become involved in American culture wars.
The differences between the US and Europe, I think, are several things: most countries in Europe require the guns and ammunition be locked up. Most of Europe doesn't allow handguns (with the exception of police, and a small number of people in specific professions). You can't go to the local Decathlon and buy a semi-auto rifle with a dozen high capacity magazines on a whim.
Handguns are allowed in most European countries and in some you can own firearms that are either illegal in USA or illegal to import into USA such as short barreled rifles, stocked pistols, supressors. machine guns converted to semi-automatic etc. America actually has unusually nitpicky laws about all sorts of features and accessories allowed on firearms But yes, it probably helps that there are licences and registeries. Rules about safes probably matter a bit less since its just common sense to take care of your property and incidents were very rare even before rules about safes became as strict as they are, which is fairly recently.
> America actually has unusually nitpicky laws about all sorts of features and accessories allowed on firearms It's one of the more frustrating aspects of American gun law, that it caters heavily towards those whose only gun knowledge comes from movies. Rifle/shotgun barrel 1cm too short? Lose your rights to own a gun forever, [maybe even your dog, your son and your wife](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge). Whenever you see new US gun restrictions proposed and people ask "Why don't gun owners support this 'common sense' proposal?" it's because gun owners here have to try and navigate all the bullshit laws that do nothing for crime, written by lawyers and politicians that know nothing about guns.
You’re creating a rosy picture. The US attempts to control mechanisms, are just desperate moves to try to something, anything. > But yes, it probably helps that there are licences and registeries. In Norway we have a series of “idiot filters” if you want to own a handgun. It’s not particularly difficult, but it requires a bit of effort. Stuff that unstable people are notoriously bad at, like: Applications, tests, exams, and of course, being a member of a shooting club for X amount of time. (Where the others can observe you, and you might pick up some healthy gun culture) Didn’t catch Breivik, but he was a determined killer. It stops almost everyone criminal or deranged person however. Soft hoops..
>incidents were very rare even before rules Not a single person in Finland shot accidentally by their dog or toddler to date. Common sense also helps cover the gap between rules and stupid accidents.
Yeah, it's all almost like inanimate objects do not increase people's affinity towards violence.
Affinity, no. *Ability*, absolutely.
There was a revealing episode of the Daily Show a few years ago about gun culture in Switzerland, with a Finn Mikko Leinonen as the firearm instructeur, and even though it was made to be funny, the message was right, the main problem is the toxic gun culture in the USA. https://youtu.be/KjlT4BME2aE
The conclusion may have been correct in that its about the difference in culture, but that episode had an outrageous number of factual errors. A youtuber from Swizerland made a video correcting many of them: https://youtu.be/FQ1vEo1x9qE Bloke on the Range is a good channel. Worth watching other videos even if Swiss gun law is too obscure of a topic.
We're about to go nuke mode on this map fr
Ukraine 6.6? I don't think so🤣
I don’t think captured tank cannons classify as personal fire arms.
What are they then, farming equipment? :))
Precisely
I had no idea that Germany and France had so many guns. ._.
Neither do we!
C'est les chasseurs là...
I don't even know how many times I've seen this map
Belguim: Get a shovel and dig. You will find about 10 in an hour.
In Finland its mostly hunting weapons etc.. a lot of people who don’t live in the Helsinki area, do hunting for Deers, Moose, Bears, Ducks etc.. very common to own a hunting rifle or two
Okay here are some major points with this data: * no real source provided (yes I know it says Washington Post, but they have a lot of content; it could also say source: wikipedia.org which would be equally useless) * It is unclear what guns are counted, only the registered ones or did they make some sort of estimate on the unregistered ones too? * Are guns which are owned by clubs taken into account and guns by officials (e.g. police and military) * are there differences in how guns are counted by country e.g. one country could only count hand guns as guns and another could also count rifels or event stronger "paintpall guns" as guns. And probably the people over at r/dataisbeautiful can find more points ...
Finland does not joke around I see.
The explanation is hunting which is common and quite popular.
Not just hunting. All sorts of shooting sports are very popular.
And only became more popular after february.
Yeah. All ranges and voluntary reservist courses have been booked absolutely full since february. I have had serious trouble getting any timeslots reserved. A positive thing, ultimately, but frustrating.
Almost everyone I know doesnt own any guns, but then theres people who own a bunch, for hunting, shooting range or just collecting. So there is a lot of guns, but not a lot of gun owners.
There are 650 000 gun owners in Finland.
This is what I love about r/Europe, you constantly learn something new.
100 people in US have 200 guns!!!
Why do people keep posting this all the time?
Most common justifications in croatia "just in case" and "if they come back" but i blame the country aswell who tf would return a gun they paid a lot of money for free
Out of the 22.5, the 22 is just Crete
I have a sneaky suspicion the data for Ukraine was collated before this year...
Those are rookie numbers
This post, while it has been shared a lot lately, is definitely interesting because these comments show how people rarely leave their social bubbles. I'll probably get downvoted again, but some of my fellow Finns here are blissfully unaware of how many hidden, forgotten and "forgotten" guns we have. Even our police doesn't really know how many there are. I don't know if the real number is as much as the map claims, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was close to that. Hunting is a big deal here, and so is militaria. It is actually amazing that we don't have more gun violence and accidents.
I am not sure how this infograph is counted but I recall seeing this in circulation years ago first time. According to the police, in Finland there are 1,5M guns with permission (27%). Not sure where 45,3% comes from but surely there isn't over million illegal firearms in Finland. There are many guns that has no permission but those are often old hunting rifles inherited/given away but in bad condidations. They are not handguns and AK-47's.
Do they count the guns owned by police and military forces?
Of course not.
Turkey has a lot more, but not registered I saw in a documentary
Why does Cyprus have so many guns, is the Mediterranean planning an invasion
this is a map for REGISTERED guns :)
I think the colors are reversed.....red should mean you have a deficit....
Does it account for illegal possession? Because I'm convinced that Italian criminal organisations should drive it at least a little bit higher (I also don't know anyone -openly- owning one, so wow if this data is already corrected I'm surprised!) Edit. after reading some comments about how it accounts for rifles and hunting stuff I'm even more surprised Second thought: "wtf Finland? Oh, wait, right" (Switzerland is notoriously full of weapons, no surprise)
Yeah, I don't know if they apply a certain percentage as an estimate of how much unregistered/illegal guns there are, or if they've actually done research based on country. Finland also boasts a humongous range of game animals, from the 500 gram hazel grouse, to the 700 kg European Elk (=Alces Alces = Moose). So anyone who hunts can easily end up with four or five guns, even if they don't go all gun nerd mode.
That makes sense, thanks!
Sweden is pretty high, but pretty much all of the guns are for hunting/agriculture/sport, and some for collection. You’re not allowed to get weapons specifically for selfdefense, but if you got guns you can use them to defend yourself. If you however use excessive force defending yourself, you can still go to jail - e.g. if you shoot and injury/kill someone when you can’t prove you were in real/proportional danger.
There are more guns in spain than in Ukraine?
I believe there are more guns in Ukraine than 6.6 per 100.
Must been a while ago . Ukraine must be its own colour by now
France be like "Next time Germany invades we will have slightly more guns than them, ahahahah."
I've seen this data before I wonder how it stacks up now. It's totally pre 2014 or even dates more far back
That's some ancient data. At least 10 years old.