What gun control looks like in wealthy nations

Friday's shooting of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Japan — a country known for its strict firearms regulations and low rates of gun violence — has sent shock waves across the world. Other countries with strict firearms laws have also experienced recent high-profile incidents of gun-related violence. DW looks at the laws in a handful of countries where gun violence is rare, but real. 

Japan 

"No one shall possess a firearm or firearms or a sword or swords" is the wording of Japan's weapons law. The country has some of the world's most stringent regulations on private gun ownership. Other than the police and the military, no one is allowed to possess a handgun. Only shotguns and air rifles are available to civilians.

Even buying those weapons in Japan is a long and challenging process. A prospective gun owner must attend mandatory all-day classes and pass a written test and shooting-range test with an accuracy of at least 95%. 

Applicants must also undergo a mental health evaluation followed by a police background check — including the backgrounds of their relatives — to make sure that neither the applicant nor the people in their immediate circle have criminal records.

The license is valid for three years. After obtaining a gun, the owner must retake the class and the exam every three years to renew their license. The weapon must be registered and inspected by the police once a year. 

Japan last saw the shooting of a politician in 2007, when Iccho Itoh, the mayor of Nagasaki, was killed by a yakuza member. After the assassination, the country tightened the restrictions even further and raised punishments for illegally possessing firearms.

Gun violence is extremely rare in Japan. According to the National Police, there were only 10 shootings in 2021. In the United States, by comparison, 321 people are shot daily, with 111 killed, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Denmark 

After seven people were killed in Highland Park, Illinois, on July 4, US conservatives seized on a July 3 shooting that killed three people at a shopping center in Copenhagen, Denmark, to argue that strict gun laws fail to prevent such tragedies. Opponents of this argument point out that Denmark has only had three mass shootings since 1994, whereas the US has already seen more than 300 mass shooting incidents in 2022.

GunPolicy.org, an international database run by the University of Sydney, categorizes the regulation of guns in the Scandinavian country as "restrictive." Firearms in Denmark are regulated by the Justice Ministry.

Civilians cannot own fully automatic firearms; semiautomatic weapons and handguns (pistols and revolvers) are only allowed with special authorization. People who want to purchase firearms must provide a reason such as collecting, hunting or target shooting. Police conduct background checks to determine whether it is safe to grant an applicant a permit. A record of each privately held firearm's acquisition, possession and transfer is retained in an official register.

According to GunPolicy.org, Denmark's estimated rate of private gun ownership was 9.9 weapons per 100 people in 2017. 

New Zealand 

A white supremacist gunman killed 51 people and wounded at least 50 others in shootings at two mosques in 2019 in Christchurch. The government took action within a month, introducing a nationwide ban on semiautomatic weapons and assault rifles. Parliament voted almost unanimously in favor of the change, with a single dissenting vote.

This rapid reaction to the mass shooting was a unique one. During a visit to the United States in May 2022, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told "The Late Show" host Stephen Colbert that the change was a "pragmatic" response: "We saw something that wasn't right, and we acted on it."

Germany

In the wake of the terror attacks in Paris in 2015, the revised European Commission revised its directive on personal firearms. The changes were incorporated into Germany's weapon laws in 2020. Since then, authorities have had to check with domestic intelligence agencies to see if applicants are suspected of extremism before issuing gun permits.

Authorities must also check every five years whether a registered gun owner has a "legitimate need" to own a weapon. This usually means that the police check whether a gun owner is a shooting club member or has a hunting license. 

Whether this measure would be sufficient to prevent extremist attacks has been a matter of debate.

Tobias R., the white supremacist who killed nine people in Hanau in 2020, and Stephan E., the neo-Nazi who murdered regional official Walter Lübcke near Kassel in 2019, were both members of shooting clubs. 

Germany's Interior Ministry revealed that, as of December 2021, 1,561 right-wing extremists still legally possessed weapons in Germany. This shows a significant increase of almost 30% compared to 2020, when authorities recorded 1,203 right-wing extremists with legally owned guns.

The Interior Ministry is drafting a new bill to expand the scope of the background checks that authorities must make before granting or renewing gun licenses. 

Switzerland

Switzerland has one of the most heavily armed populations in the world, with more than 2.3 million privately owned guns in a population of 8.5 million.

Gun culture in Switzerland is essentially linked to its army. Military service is mandatory for all male citizens, who after finishing their service can keep the gun assigned to them at home. 

The high number of weapons doesn't come without regulations. To own a gun, you must get a license from local authorities, which means undergoing several background checks.

Switzerland is not a member of the European Union, but is in the Schengen Area and the country's relationship with the EU is governed through a series of bilateral agreements. Consequently, a referendum was held in 2019 to tighten the country's gun laws to conform with new EU regulations. Almost 64% of voters agreed to tougher restrictions on semi-automatic and automatic weapons.

Although the strong gun culture and rates of firearm ownership in Switzerland bear similarities to those of the United States, the number of mass shootings is incomparable. Switzerland's last mass shooting was the 2001 attack on the Cantonal Council in Zug, which killed 14 people; the Gun Violence Archive recorded 692 mass shootings in the United States in 2021 alone. This is the highest figure since the nonprofit research group started tracking shootings in 2014.

UK and Norway

The UK has come a long way in restricting gun ownership, now having some of the strictest firearms laws in the world. Shortly after the devastating Hungerford massacre in 1987, which left 16 people dead, the government took a big step in banning ownership of semiautomatic rifles and introducing new restrictions on the use of shotguns. 

The 1996 Dunblane massacre, in which 16 children and one teacher were killed at a primary school, led to further reforms on gun laws in the United Kingdom. The Firearms (Amendment) Act of 1997 prohibited civilians from possessing all but the smallest-caliber handguns, which were then also banned under Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour government the following year. 

According to GunPolicy.org, the United Kingdom has one of the lowest rates of gun ownership (five guns for every 100 residents). The majority of the UK police also do not carry guns. 

The situation looks slightly different in Norway, where 77 people were killed by Anders Behring Brevik, including 69 in a terrorist attack on a youth camp for a center-left party, in 2011. In 2021, a decade after the attack, semiautomatic weapons, which had been used in the attack, were banned. Norway still has a high firearms ownership rate compared to other European countries (28.8 guns per 100 people, according to the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey), but gun-related violence is very low.