by David Kavanagh

The European Commission has today adopted a list of measures aimed at strengthening the control of firearms across the European Union.

This comes days following an attack by IS-affiliated extremists in Paris that left at least 129 people dead and hundreds more injured.

The package will see the implementation of regulations designed to make it more difficult to acquire firearms, especially certain semi-automatic guns, and easier to track the movement of weapons already in legal circulation throughout the region.

Further provisions aim at both ensuring deactivated weapons are made inoperable and strengthening gun control cooperation between EU states generally.

“The recent terrorist attacks on Europe’s people and values were coordinated across borders, showing that we must work together to resist these threats,” said President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker.

“Today’s proposal… will help us tackle the threat of weapons falling into the hands of terrorists,” he said.

The European Commission is also currently developing an action plan specifically targeting the illegal trafficking of weapons and explosives throughout the EU.

Issues it will focus on include the purchasing of weapons on black markets, the control of illegal weapons, especially from Balkan countries or ex-war zones, in EU internal markets, and the cross-border battle against organised crime.

Despite France’s stringent laws outlawing most forms of gun ownership, the eight assailants directly responsible for Friday’s violence used both explosives and Kalashnikovs.

On the day following, police found a Belgian-plated car containing a further three assault rifles, five full bullet magazines and 11 empty ones.

According to figures from the Paris-based National Observatory for Delinquency and an Al Jazeera report, the number of illegal guns entering France has swollen drastically over the past few years.

French police seized over 2,700 unregistered weapons in 2010, compared to more than 1,500 the year before.

Speculation suggests many of these weapons are brought into the country through Eastern Europe, where the trafficking of deadly arms is big business and authorities have a harder time intervening.

In the weeks following the murder of 12 people at the offices of French satirical Charlie Hebdo in Paris last January, head of the French police union UNSA said: “the French black market for weapons has been inundated with Eastern European war artillery and arms.”

Around the same time, Europol Chief of Staff Brian Donald voiced concerns that the continent may be receiving an influx of firearms from countries in North Africa feeling the effects of Arab Spring revolutions.

Donald told TIME Magazine that in an effort to test how easy it was to attain illegal arms, young police recruits with little experience were tasked with trying to find weapons on the streets from illegal arms dealers.

“One came back two hours later with an AK-47 he bought… for 1000 [Euro],” he said.

The already proposed amendments will need approval from the European Parliament and Council before they can come into effect.

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