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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 9, 2026

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Guns haven't been banned yet, unlike in most of Europe.

The closer to the [American] Anglosphere you are, the worse the gun laws get.

This is because the illiberal/progressive faction in those countries takes their marching orders wholesale from American media and turn them loose on countries that have far less rule of law (NZ -> AUS -> UK -> CAN from least to most restrictive, if you were curious. For the UK, Northern Ireland is a notable exception; I don't think Oranges would tolerate London demanding them disarm.)

Continental Europe is generally more liberal than Anglo countries are; the most liberal countries in Europe were part of the Soviet Union (and arguably because they were part of the Soviet Union).

In the Netherlands, to get a weapons permit you need a good reason, which will be hunting or sport. For hunting you also need a hunting license, which in turn requires you to own land on which you would be allowed to hunt. For sport, you need to be a member of a gun club for at least one year. These are the prerequisites.

To apply for a permit, you need to arrange for safe storage in your house, which means two separate floor-mounted safes, one for the gun and one for the ammo. The police will come and inspect your set-up. You also need three character witnesses, this on top of your hunting license and/or gun club membership (which are themselves similarly restricted). You also need a psychiatric screening, which is expensive and has a long waiting list. Even if you pass all the tests with flying colours, there is no guarantee you'll get your permit. If you do get a permit, the police will visit your house randomly to inspect your gun, ammo and safes. If you are not at home you lose your permit. The permit has to be renewed each year, going through the same procedure, and again with no guarantee you'll get to keep it even if you pass with flying colours.

As for carrying, absolutely not. If you want to transport your gun you have to pack it up into a container, and the ammo goes in a separate container.

The rest of Western Europe is generally very similar to this, though in the East they're a bit more lax.

(It's really much easier to buy a black-market gun. Nobody gives much of a shit, unless you're an upstanding citizen who has something to lose of course. In the bad neighbourhoods half the yoof are packing...)

In the Netherlands, to get a weapons permit you need a good reason, which will be hunting or sport. [Also, other stuff.]

Yes, the other countries I mentioned all have similar licensing laws (and provisions to do those things), and yes, I'd expect Western Europe to be far more despotic in this regard since the State capacity is generally higher.

Yet I will also point out that Europe tends to have more mistake theory in its lawmaking than the US does, which means that Anglosphere countries adopt conflict theory gun laws in place of ones that were ostensibly based on mistake theory regional compromises. Some of that is caused by gynosupremacy, but not all of it.