Does their restricted access to guns mean people in Europe rarely go hunting?
Europe is a large and varied continent, and different nations have different laws and cultures regarding both gun ownership and hunting. So no generalisation can safely be made on the topic. In Britain, for example, where gun ownership is severely restricted, hunting is nonetheless a popular sport with certain groups and classes. Those who enjoy hunting are quite prepared to go through the paperwork to own a rifle for the sport, and usually hunt on specific preserves which are kept stocked with game for that purpose. In Albania, almost every male citizen outside an urban area owns a gun, although it is more likely used for shooting predators that threaten herds than for anything that looks like ‘hunting’. Hunting is still part of a livelihood in areas of the Pyrenees, but not in Italy. In many areas that used to be part of Yugoslavia, guns abound without regulation, but game is pretty scarce. In fact, the biggest restriction on hunting across most of Europe is not the issue of legal gu
