Countries in Europe that allow people to carry concealed handguns: Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland

It isn’t too surprising that the countries that feel most threatened by Russia are the ones that are most keen on letting their citizens have and carry guns for protection. Interestingly, Czechia has had a relatively low homicide rate compare to other European countries. In 2020, Czechia’s homicide rate was 0.73 per 100,000 people. The EU average was about 0.9 to 1 per 100,000 and the overall European average was a little higher at about 2 per 100,000. In comparison, Germany was 0.86/100,000 people, Finland 1.72, France 1.03, Sweden 1.2, According to this source, of the 36 European countries listed, only four European countries had a lower homicide rate than the Czech Republic. Estonia and Lithuania have high homicide rates, though they are both lower than Latvia. Obviously, as we have warned many times, we don’t put a lot of weight on purely cross-sectional comparisons.