The recent attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris has left the country in shock.
It has also brought up a lot of questions about gun laws and gun accessibility in France and Europe in general.
Many countries in Europe are comparatively strict on guns, but the continent has a thriving black market that traffics heavily in weapons.
The question is: what exactly are Europe's gun laws and how easy is it to illegally get a weapon there?
European countries have a wide spectrum of gun laws and in some countries like Switzerland, almost half the population own guns and laws are consider lacks.
In other places like Lithuania and Romania,
few civilians own firearms because at one point they were part of the Soviet Union, which had extremely strict gun laws.
Within the European Union, there are about 16 gun owners per 100 people.
In order to be part of the EU, countries must abide by some basic guidelines.
No citizen may own a fully automatic weapon and there are restrictions on semi-auto weapons and handguns
There is also a licensing process with background checks.
Plus, each nation in the EU is free to make their own additional gun control laws and several do.
The United Kingdom, for example has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world
and consequently, only 6 out of 100 Brits have registered firearms.
France, Germany and Norway are also notably strict on gun control.
In these countries, obtaining a gun license is costly, time-consuming and purposefully complex
Some requirements in these countries include:
Practising at an official fire range for 6 months, paying several thousands of Euros and being subject to random home inspections for correct gun storage.
After these qualifications are met, then and only then can you get a license to own a firearm.
But as we said this doesn't mean everyone in Europe follows these laws.
There is an enormous black market called the "Shadow Economy" for weapons.
A UK-based think tank claims that this "Shadow Economy" makes up 20% of national income for Spain, Italy and Greece.
Other nations in Eastern Europe like Georgia may get up to 60% of their GDP from the  black market.
This market leads to paradoxes like the one we currently have in France,
France is strict on gun control but it's also one of the most well-armed nations in Western Europe.
About 3 million firearms are registered and legal, but there is estimated to be an additional 16 million illicit guns in the country.
This is mostly due to the black market and France's proximity to countries where the black market flourishes.
The Christian Science Monitor claims that Paris is the hub of one of the largest internet trafficking rings
and that the click of a mouse buys an AK-47 for between $2000 and $4000.
Since the attack on Charlie Hebdo, French gun laws and black market dealings have come under scrutiny.
But an expert cited by the International Business Times predicts "If [a debate arises] in France following the Charlie Hebdo attack.it will be -
over national security and gun trafficking, not gun rights"
To learn more about gun laws in the United States, check out this video now.
[Preview of Video]"As it stands now, licensed dealers have to do a background check before they can sell or transfer a gun to a customer.
This is designed to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, domestic abusers and others that Washington have deemed unfit for gun ownership.
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