Serbia Shootings
Relatives of a victim carry a coffin during a funeral for five people killed during the second mass shooting in two days, in the village of Malo Orasje, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Belgrade, Serbia. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Serbia is awash in weapons, many of them left over from the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

It now ranks third in the world for gun ownership, with an estimated 39 firearms per 100 people, trailing the United States with 121 and Yemen with 53, according to the 2018 Small Arms Survey.

Almost 95 percent of gun owners in Serbia today are men, often middle-aged and older, according to an October 2022 report by the Flemish Peace Institute, an independent research group. The most frequent reasons for gun ownership “were not linked to tradition and customs,” but for self-protection and hunting, the report said. The researchers found that most Serbs believed that the most effective ways to protect against gun violence were a greater police presence, “violence awareness campaigns and stricter gun-control regulations.”

The exact number of guns in Serbia has been difficult to ascertain. According to The Small Arms Survey, there were approximately 2.7 million firearms in civilian hands at the end of 2017, but fewer than half were registered with the government.

— Cora Englebrecht in What’s Behind Serbia’s Gun Violence

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27 COMMENTS

    • How sad that Freedom of the Press is used to print garbage.
      =
      During the Civil War, the Times had machine guns on the building in 1863 when democrats went crazy over the “draft riots”!!
      ==
      Lincoln had to send in front line troops to stop the rioting democrats.
      ==

  2. With all those guns left over since the 90s its odd, then, that it only took 30+ years for them to become the problem.

    Here’s a hint, look at the generation of people doing this.

  4. Sad to hear of these tragic shootings in Serbia. Condolences to the families and friends affected by these crimes.
    This will only result in more gun-grabbing in Serbia and Europa generally.
    One would have thought that there were a LOT more firearms in Serbia, considering that Serbs have traditionally liked their personal weapons, dating back at least to Ottoman times- and for good reason. But then, maybe the NYT is only counting those admitted to by Serbian people registering their guns.

    • Happy Sunday LifeSavor,

      Agreed!

      Trying to do my part in stepping it up.

      A small-shop FFL I know has a pristine HK-91* on consignment (from an estate sale). It might be residing in my safe soon.

      *it has all the myriad things that drive Lefties cra-cra (import banned since 1989, bayonet mount, scope mount, bipod, flash hider, pistol grip – did I mention that it is scary black plastic)…except for a giggle switch.

      • mine has a giggle switch…which is useless…but it drove the value thru the roof!…..

    • How did they get to that number? There are 326 million people in the country, and an estimated 400 million plus firearms. If we had 121 per person, the number would be close to 40 billion.

      • Mark, you misread. It’s 121 per 100, not per 1. 121/100=1.2. 400 million/326 million=1.2. You took the high road and they took the low road, and you both arrived in Scotland at the same time.

  6. Nothing to do with a short tempered violent Yugoslavian? Do they now prefer to exude peace and love?

  7. Although Serbia has a lot of guns, the annual homicide rate is only one per 100,000 people. This is lower than the murder rate in England. Of course Serbia doesn’t have any Blacks who commit murder at ten times the rate as Whites nor do they have any Hispanics. They also sperated themselves from Muslims

    • seem to recall one famous shooting in Serbia….this is the Balkans…those people have been killing each other for eons…

  8. Funding for mental health care gets lower and lower every year. Some troubled person can’t find help, so they buy a gun, find a mall or school to shoot up, and bingo! You’ve got suicide by cop! But we can’t blame anybody, So it’s the inanimate guns’ fault. Right, it’s always the guns’ fault.

    • Funding for mental health care is low because mental health care “professionals” have deliberately burned any credibly they once had. Entire industry is now about drugging and castrating its victims and forcing everyone else to put up with the nonsense they demand.

  9. According to the media the guns have a miasma of evil that infects and corrupts anyone in the area into committing evil deeds.

  11. I know I’ve asked this question before, but here goes: HOW CAN AN INANIMATE OBJECT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING?

  12. Many argue it’s irrational to oppose “gun control”. That’s error. The down-side to “gun control” is genocide, in which hundreds of thousands – or millions – are murdered. By disarming victims, “gun control” aids a genocidal politician to recruit thousands of helpers.

    In the 20th Century, the biggest murderers were officials of governments “gone bad”, not criminals.

    An example: on 29-30 September 1941, the Nazis and local helpers murdered 33,000 Jews – many children – at Babi Yar, near Kyiv, Ukraine, then in the ex-Soviet Union. In all of 2020, the U.S. recorded 21,570 murders.

    The new Soviet régime (7 November 1917) imposed “gun control” early-on: “1 April [1918]. …The certificates authorizing the carrying and keeping of firearms issued by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, are valid throughout the territory of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.” “Dekreti Sovetskoy Vlasti” (Decrees of Soviet Power), Vol. II (17 March-10 April 1918). Moscow, 1959; Doc. 22, pp. 40-41.

    Ordinary Soviets likely could not get such a certificate. Unlike Germany, Ukraine’s Jews were not a micro-minority. Jews were 5.4% of 30.9 million Ukrainians (1939 census). “Statesman’s Yearbook-1949”; 86th Ed.; London, p. 1399.

    Soviet “gun control” promoted the murders of 1.5 million Soviet Jews: many were children. Most were buried alive, some after being shot into burial pits, others suffocated under the weight of corpses.

    Still think “gun control” has no down-side?

  13. Well to be fair, it is kind of hard to have a mass shooting if you don’t have a gun.

    • then you build a bomb…tends to work better anyway…especially if you’re somewhere else when it goes off….

    • When you consider that between 80 to 90% of the guns used to commit crimes were either stolen or purchased off the Black Market, that argument loses air quickly. Ot’s not just Drugs and Cartel Slaves being shipped over the border. The MSM won’t report the other illegal goodies coming across.

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