The world's gun laws at a glance!

If you have ever wondered what the laws may be in other nations, wonder no more! This list provides an entry for every nation on Earth with numerical score to rank gun restriction policies and a one line description of what those policies are for a given place. Additionally, it ranks individual U.S. states in the same way.

I had been under the impression by the talk here sometimes that the U.S. was somehow unusual or unique for firearms access and usage. I was quite surprised to find how many have few restrictions or common sense ones we'd find logical here as well...if we don't already have them at state levels now. Anyway, it's as much full of surprises for what is restricted and where as what isn't.

Worldwide Gun Laws and Regulations in a 1 minute glance.

*Sorry about the link... I'd forgotten how Google tends to be about the privilege of seeing a document through their system. It's corrected now with a docu-viewer that doesn't demand account creation to view it.

Wow good find! I've wondered a lot about the laws elsewhere but have never seen it all in one place. I wonder what this list will look like in a few years...

I remember this realization coming up a year or two ago in another thread. Not presented in such a clean and nice way however.

Begs the question, why the constant obsession over the US? Why are people from so many other countries, quite a few are far more liberal with gun laws than the US is, constantly pushing the US to enact bans?

It's bizarre.

In a country with gun rights clearly spelled out on the federal level and in many states constitutions with such an allegedly strong and enduring gun culture why are gun laws in the US so puritanly conservative by comparison?

reply to post by thisguyrighthere

If I had to guess after looking over all that? I'd say it comes down the simple fact that the majority of the world's most obnoxious and agenda driven media organizations are in the U.S......and a shooting in an African nation or a little known Asian one doesn't make news stories anyone buys a paper or increases ratings for?

You know what surprised me the most on that was reading the European nations as a whole. Some are so restricted, a BB gun is almost a felony to read it. While others? Wow... I wonder how that works when the borders are so close and relatively open? How does one nation have fairly open licensing and home possession laws when a neighbor all but bans them? I'm just thinking here of how it works for neighboring U.S. states with very different laws. The restrictive of the two always seems to give plenty of business to the one which isn't?

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Needs to be updated. Wisconsin now has CCW.

State wise, I think that only Illinios is the last holdout.

City regs though are another matter.

Great find!

Looks like every State in the US is more Liberal with guns laws compared to the rest of the world.

Some other countries were a surprise to see how liberal their laws were as well, however this has prompted me to add that even though the laws pertaining to firearms are lax or strickt in certain countries, quality of enforcement of said laws should be considered, if enforcement exists at all.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


These countries and states with the stricter restrictions then cry that their laws arent working because of their neighbors lax laws. See Mayors Against (Il)legal guns.

While ignoring the crime stats of their own state. Teh Brady map is great in that is shows all the crime hot spots to be heavilly gun restricted spots. Shooting themselves in the foot with their own propaganda.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


What makes us unique is we can go to walmart and walk out with an ar-15 10 minutes later.

So, how does one go about getting the paperwork to move to Arizona?

reply to post by khimbar


You just go to Arizona and start living there.

Originally posted by zonetripper2065
reply to post by khimbar

 

You just go to Arizona and start living there.

I doubt it's that easy when your starting point is the UK.

reply to post by khimbar


Get a visa and you can move right in

reply to post by khimbar

If you're serious at all, yeah, it's a process. My father-in-law passed here recently as he was in the 3rd year of immigration from Scotland. It was going smoothly and he'd been living here for a couple years but married over there to get that far in staying here. I'm not sure how it gets done from the UK outside of marriage. You'd think it would be a simple thing.....being how close the US and UK are, but not so apparently.

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere
...
Begs the question, why the constant obsession over the US? Why are people from so many other countries, quite a few are far more liberal with gun laws than the US is, constantly pushing the US to enact bans?

It's bizarre.

In a country with gun rights clearly spelled out on the federal level and in many states constitutions with such an allegedly strong and enduring gun culture why are gun laws in the US so puritanly conservative by comparison?

First, there is no constant obsession. There is disbelief and a certain derision. A majority of the rest is overhyped drama about perceived outrage from nasty foreigners primarily in your own media. We´d like you to stop Virginia-Teching and Gabby-Giffording each other so regularly, not take away your guns per se.

The fundamental difference between most other developed nations and the US is not the acceptance of personal firearms in general, but the way to approach it. The USA is one of the only places where firearms ownership is (arguably) laid down as a personal right. Most other nations treat it as a privilege - more or less easily acquired. Once acquired, this privilege of firearm ownership is more lenient in many nations than in a lot of US states.

As most nations dont see personal firearm ownership as a natural right, it is treated with the same view as other endeavours that require permits, licenses, prerequisites or "chitties". Drivers license, business permits, education prerequisities for certain jobs and activities etc. are privileges as well; and most nations seamlessly add personal firearm licenses to that list without discriminating against it in a special way. In fact, the three things I named are more important to pursue happines and personal liberty than something as mundane as owning guns. There are millions and millions of legal guns in private hands of Europe; its just not something that everyone wishes for themselves or even minds.

In short, what you have is not opposition against guns. What you have is the inability to grasp the life-or-death importance many Americans put into owning lead delivery systems. This is also because the popular US sentiment of forever being threatened is not commonly accepted in developed countries. Add to that much lower violent crime stats, a general trust in the democratic system and better social security systems, and the importance of being able to "stand your ground" is even lowered. We can argue who´s the wiser here, but thats just the common denominator of it all.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
...
You know what surprised me the most on that was reading the European nations as a whole. Some are so restricted, a BB gun is almost a felony to read it. While others? Wow... I wonder how that works when the borders are so close and relatively open? How does one nation have fairly open licensing and home possession laws when a neighbor all but bans them? I'm just thinking here of how it works for neighboring U.S. states with very different laws. The restrictive of the two always seems to give plenty of business to the one which isn't?

You have open borders in most of Europe, yes, but not a common jurisdiction (at least not on this very personal level). Maybe you are confusing the federal STATES´ system of the USA to the federated NATIONS´ system in Europe. You cant just walk into a neighbouring, lenient nation and purchase guns as a foreigner; just like foreigners cant simply buy one in the US. (as everywhere, this does not apply to criminal weapon trafficking of course).

The second difference is the cultural difference I lined out above; many people have weapons, but they have them for a purpose; be that hunting, collecting, tradition or sports shooting (or mere showing off). In Germany for example, membership numbers in gun-related clubs and organizations are second or third behind car clubs and football clubs (on that german note, the Nazis did actually ease up gun laws, contrary to a popular myth).

But the guns are not part of the everyday life of even THESE weapon-owning people. The rationale of concealed carrying for example is very different to that "work-like" relationship to tools of shooting. Which just means that very few people actually care about who has acquired which gun where for what purpose.

I´m not saying people ignore the personal safety aspect inherent to guns; its just that its not very prominent.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


And the winner by a hare is Arizona!!!! 9.3

In second place Yemen !!!...??? 9 .0 (very interesting)

That was interesting to read that thanks wrabbit. I love learning these things and it show how unique our position is, in that it is a guaranteed right of the people to own firearms. I'm not at all interested in having a gun law debate on Ats but I am glad that I can own my mossberg 500 to hunt those tasty little deer with . I actually do this as a source of food not for the rush of killing a living thing . Venison is delicious and good for you.

Anyhow thanks again sir and btw I dont hunt rabbits