Handguns
Handguns
on target for authority?
This chapter compares the changing styles of regulating handguns in nineteen European countries between 1960 and 2010. The past decades have been characterized by a remarkably homogeneous cross-national development towards more restrictive firearm regulation for handgun owners and, to a lesser extent, more severe sanctions for illegal handgun possession. While some of those gun policy developments were the result of international harmonization efforts within the EU, many other movements towards authority in gun control were motivated by sudden and disruptive moral shocks in the wake of rampage shootings. While states have often responded to such shocks by transmitting public pressure towards more authoritarian styles of regulating handguns, a few others have managed to completely absorb their shocks. In order to learn more about the factors that drive both types of reactions, the chapter analyses the political processing of rampage shootings in Great Britain (Dunblane), Germany (Erfurt), and Switzerland (Zug).
Keywords: gun control, gun policy, firearm regulation, handguns, rampage shooting
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