Milliam Sams, Two gentlemen duelling with pistols. Etching, 1823 (Wellcome Collection 568668i)
About the project
“A Continent Disarmed? Gun Culture, Gun Control and the Making of Western Europe” (EU-GUNS) is a historical research project that investigates lawful gun possession and the use of small firearms by law-abiding civilians in Western Europe between the 1870s and 1970s.
Over the course of a century, Europe underwent a silent revolution that transformed it from a continent where firearms were part of everyday life and culturally accepted to a space where civilians were largely disarmed, while gun ownership became associated with deviance and crime. This shift, spurred in the aftermath of the two world wars, was crucial for maintaining public order, fostering social peace and ensuring the smooth operation of political systems.
By comparatively examining six Western European countries – Italy, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Sweden – the project explores the root causes of this transformation. Whereas previous studies have focused on illegal and brutal forms of gun use, including political violence, terrorism and extermination, EU-GUNS investigates the everyday, lawful use of weapons, thus adopting an innovative perspective.”
The project investigates how this transformation unfolded and how it reshaped the relationship between individuals and the state, contributing to our understanding of how modern European societies and their ideas of citizenship, security, and public order took shape.
Research areas
The project rests on three interconnected and overlapping research areas:
Gun control: the project investigates how laws and policies regulating civilian gun use and ownership were conceived, implemented and perceived, and how they related to broader transformations in state authority and sovereignty;
Gun cultures: EU-GUNS explores cultural representations of firearms, gendered practices and values associated with gun use, reflecting how these changed over time, space and across social groups;
Gun-related practices: along with legal measures and cultural representations, gun-related practices represent the core of EU-GUNS’s objectives. The project examines the actual uses of firearms by law-abiding citizens, from hunting and recreational shooting to self-defence and suicide, and how these practices interacted with developments within their respective legal and cultural framework.
[Image: Gruppo di caccia a fine battuta (famiglia Di Ciolo/Giusti) www.europeana.eu/it/item/2024919/https___digitalgallery_promoter_it_files_original_89602349692822f9565b448a1b17875f_]
Methods
EU-GUNS takes a transnational, interdisciplinary approach, combining synchronic comparisons across countries with diachronic investigations of long-term transformations. Drawing on a wide range of disciplinary tools, the project combines political, legal and institutional history with contributions from other disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, gender studies and security studies.
The study is supported by extensive empirical research, based on a wide range of primary sources. These include institutional documents, parliamentary papers, legal journals, the press, sources collected from national and local archives. This comprehensive approach makes it possible to reconstruct the legal framework, understand the transformation of gun cultures and explore gun-related practices across Western Europe.
