Comment by pjlegato
5 years ago
Gun ownership is quite common in many parts of Europe. Finland in particular is nearly the same as the US in terms of percentage of households with firearms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent_of_households_with_gun...
But [0] they are licenced for specific usages, and carry is not allowed outside of that context, and 'personal protection' hasn't been one (barring extant holders) since 1998.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_Finland
That article also says that unregistered / illegal firearms are common in Finland, many hidden since World War II.
This is the case in many other parts of Europe, too.
But in practice it’s still extremely rare to encounter them day-to-day. For example Switzerland is very high but almost all guns are given by the state during military service and are kept locked away in case of invasion. Bullets are illegal.
The totals looks similar but in practice the situation with weapons is extremely different. You have basically no chance to encounter an armed person in the street.