Firearms Regulation in the European Union : Striking a Delicate Balance Between Single Market and Security

This article discusses the wider question of firearms regulation in the EU and the US by analyzing the firearm's legislation of the European Union. This article analyzes the three consecutive Firearms Directives, which have been enacted over time by the EU legislature, the legal challenge of the Firearms Directive at the CJEU, and the comparative perspective of firearms regulation in the European Union and the United States. This article aims to take an objective viewpoint and spare any emotionally heated argument. The debate to which degree firearm's legislation influences crimes such as homicide, robbery or terrorist acts, shall and cannot be discussed in the limited space of this article. Instead, the focal point will be the legal debate about firearms regulation in a federal system and the legislative competence exercised by the federal lawmaker