Are handguns legal in France?
 

I always thought handguns would be illegal in France.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061026/...urban_violence
Anybody know?

They aren't. Most firearms require a specific reasons to be legally owned (like a hunting licence to own a hunting gun, etc...)

Ah. So as I expected, these attackers illegally had weapons. Of course.

in trolling mood today? :)

Only to those that understand. :-)

They are illegal, an honest law abiding citizen cannot protect himself and his family.

Only the criminals are armed.

Great placed to live.

Both in France and Spain, actually in most European countries you can legally buy firearms if you go through the right channels. If you are afraid of someone braking into your house and shooting you and your family (most Europeans aren't since it happens very rarely) you could buy a gun. We don't get them free for opening bank accounts or anything like that.
The easiest weapon to get in Europe is a shotgun as it is the weapon mostly used for hunting birds and rabbits, incidentally it is also probably the most effective weapon to defend your home. Someone with a hand gun is much more likely to miss his target than someone with a shotun.

Funny how that works

Correct Gunni - also results in very low deaths by firearms. The exception is Switzerland where guns are in almost every household - tho deaths by firearms could be counted on one hand.

totally ...

that's because they don't have an army per se, they have about 20 or so people (+- few thousand) that get 5 and a half minutes training and then they have to take their machine guns home and defend the country in case of an invasion

I find the whole thing a bit pointless because even the tiniest African country will defeat them in a day max, not to mention that there are probably more guns in the average South African school than in the whole of Switzerland :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Yes, and what the Swiss have gained from that is the highest ratio in the world of men killing their families and then blowing their own brains out
http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/top_new...=1146687704000

Sure.. military service is almost part of tradition in Switzerland. Who knows, estimates vary - there are well over 1 mill to possibly 3 million assault weapons in homes - plus hell knows how many small arms. Odd that a high per capita gun country has a very low gun death problem.

Pointless? Maybe :winkwink: Little chance of Switzerland being invaded now, tho they have had centuries of defending themselves. The difference in S.A. appears to be they keep shooting each other :)

BTW.. Every noticed the countries who don't have an army or "defense", rarely get invaded or aggression? (Not referring to Switzerland) Can think of one such country where a neighbor did threaten (tho bullshit) - within 30 mins the main airport had requests to land fighter jets from other nations to defend it and international threats against the aggressor. Noticeable, and still raises a smile in the population even now, was the telegram of support from the US :pimp

In fact... I'll take that stuff about firearms deaths back - it's not that good. The number of intentional gun deaths is 6.2 per 100,000 - and definately the worst in the main Euro countries - followed by France at 5.4, Austria 4.4, Norway 4.2, Belgium 3.3, Denmark 2.4, Sweden 2.2, Germany 1.4, Spain 0.7, England/Wales 0.4 blah. The comparative for the US is 13.4.

Freaky stat on family killings, but not unusual for suicides by shooting - it's a major element in the US stats.

hmmm, my Swiss buddy would probably disagree with you since service in the army is mandatory.

not in france