Paris attacks highlight France's gun control problems

The Guardian reports:

The arsenal of weapons deployed by the eight attackers who terrorised Paris on Friday night underlined France’s gun control problems and raised the spectre of further attacks.

The country has extremely strict weapons laws, but Europe’s open borders and growing trade in illegal weapons means assault rifles are relatively easy to come by on the black market.

They feature regularly in gang warfare and were used by both the Charlie Hebdo killers and an extremist who targeted a Jewish school and paratroopers in 2012 shootings around Toulouse in the south of the country.

The suicide vests are less easy for would-be attackers to source because an amateur would struggle to create one.

“Suicide vests require a munitions specialist. To make a reliable and effective explosive is not something anyone can do,” a former French intelligence chief told Agence France-Presse, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Do you want to be known as a gun free zone.