Firearms Regulation in the European Union: Striking a Delicate Balance Between Single Market and Security
The terrorist attacks in Paris and Copenhagen of 2015 led to a tightening of firearms legislation in the European Union. Namely, Directive 2017/853 tightens the firearms regime in the European Union and sets the common floor of firearms regulation for all Member States. While in the United States, the right to bear arms is enshrined in the US Constitution, the citizens of the Member States of the European Union have no similar rights. The legislation of firearms is a topic that is vastly differently treated in the United States and in the European Union. This article analyses three consecutive Firearms Directives, which have been enacted over time by the EU legislature, the legal challenge of the Firearms Directive at the CJEU, and the comparative perspective of firearms regulation in the European Union and the United States. This article aims to take an objective viewpoint and spare any emotionally heated policy argument. The debate to which degree firearms legislation influences crimes such as homicide, robbery or terrorist acts, shall not be discussed in the limited space of this article. Instead, the focal point will be the legal debate about firearms regulation in a federal system and the legislative competence exercised by the federal lawmaker.
Recommended Citation: Niels F. Kirst, Firearms Regulation in the European Union: Striking a Delicate Balance Between Single Market and Security, 43 Fordham Int'l L.J. 855 (2020).