Between 1918 and 1934, a series of legal decrees concerning gun control transformed Sweden from a largely uncontrolled gun culture, into one where a state-controlled license system conditioned all gun ownership and carrying. The legal texts were however not issued by any one single actor, but by many governments within a changing and at times tense political landscape affected by war and conflict, and the gun control debates that surrounded them were both intense and dynamic with regards to political positions. By analysing both gun controlling decrees and gun control debates, this paper therefore provides a deeper and more dynamic understanding of why Swedish control came to be gradually tightened during and after the Great war, and of the significance of guns in a society undergoing transformations. By examining government archives, parliamentary debates and newspaper sources, the article concludes that lawmakers tightened control as a response to visions of a rapidly changing society both in terms of demographics, technology and foreign politics. Together, these visions transformed unregulated guns from being perceived as a guarantee for the security of both people and country, to constituting instead a threat to the safety and security of them both. Notions of security and safety are thus shown to be integral to the modern understanding of guns as material objects, both among those who supported various levels of gun control, and those who opposed them.