Commission Agrees to Creation of Database to Trace All Guns in European Union

A commission drawn from the European Parliament and Council has agreed on the creation of a database to track millions of guns believed to be in civilian hands across the European Union.

Politico reported the upwards of “35 million” firearms are believed to be privately held and tracking those guns is being presented as a way of fighting gang violence and terrorism.

The database follows a 2022 move to switch from paper records in gun stores to electronic records, the latter of which can now be rolled into a centralized list.

Bernd Lange, a member of the parliament’s trade committee, said, “There are still inadequate controls on the import and export of handguns. In Latin America for instance, many illegal activities and shootings use handguns smuggled in from Europe; revising the inadequate rules was more than overdue.”

Gun control moved insidiously in Europe during the 20th century, particularly in Britain.

On September 14, 2014, Breitbart News pointed to a 2009 Daily Mail online report which examined The Firearm Act of 1997–the culminating point of all Britain’s 20th century gun controls–and found violence had exploded following the Act.

In fact, the Daily Mail online described Britain as “the most violent country in Europe.” They noted that Britain’s home figures showed “the UK [had] a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and South Africa.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a pro-staffer for Pulsar Night Vision. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.