Illegal firearms in Europe: a collection

[AdamG]

Historical perspective on Marseille, which within recent memory seems to often be mentioned in the same breath as AK47s found at crime scenes.

In Marseille's long history of organised crime, where murderous mobsters with names such as The Belgian and The Blond became folklore, it's perhaps not surprising that the underworld spawned its own spin-off clothing line.

But France's second city is now battling a new wave of murderous, organised crime gangs. The Mediterranean port city, designated European capital of culture for 2013, has for years worked to shed its gangland image as "Chicago of the south" and rebrand itself as a major city break destination.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...arseille-crime

France outlaws most gun ownership and it’s almost impossible to legally acquire a high-powered rifle such as an AK-47, so where did the weapons in the Nov. 13 terror attack—not to mention the bloody January assault by Islamic terrorists on the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo magazine and the 2012 shootings by a militant in Toulouse—come from?

The answer: Eastern Europe, most likely, where the trafficking of deadly small arms is big, shady business. And where local authorities find it difficult to intervene.

The French government and the European Union know they have a foreign gun problem. But as the chain of attacks illustrates, efforts to tamp down on the flow of weapons have, so far, failed to disarm terrorists.
French police reportedly seized more than 1,500 illegal weapons in 2009 and no fewer than 2,700 in 2010. The number of illegal guns in France has swollen by double-digit percentages annually for several years, Al Jazeera reported, citing figures from Paris-based National Observatory for Delinquency.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/this-i...s-get-to-paris