They got guns!
It’s true. Here in Italy you will see lots of people carrying firearms.
Some examples: The Carabinieri which are a sort of civilian military police unit run round with pistols and oversee road blocks and checks with sub-machine guns.
The Polizia, who are a civilian body all carry guns, then there are the Polizia Municipale, who are ‘city police’ who generally concern themselves with parking and traffic related offences, but not speeding cars (but this has never been clear to me), and they carry firearms.
Next there are the ubiquitous private security guards, almost all of whom have a gun. These people are employed to stand outside banks to warn off potential robbers, but not all banks have these guards. Often, though, they drive around after dark leaving little slips of paper inserted in the shutters of shops and offices to indicate that they passed by and that all was OK. These guards are often employed, with their guns, to keep a watch on supermarkets during busy periods, such as Christmas.
OK, so you would expect such people to be armed, unless they are in the UK, which keeps its armed units very low profile everywhere apart from major airports, but I’d never seen an armed bus ticket inspector before I came to Italy. One can only conclude that there must be some people here who literally take a violent dislike to paying a Euro for a ticket.
The oddest group of officials I ever saw packing side arms was a bunch of ticket inspectors checking everyone was carrying a legal ticket on a tram one night. As far as I know Italy is not running a ’shoot on sight’ policy with regard to fare dodgers, but you never know. Still it was surprising to see these guys with guns.
Well, that’s the guns you can see. It is not too difficult for people working in high risk jobs to be allowed to have and carry arms. Jewellers often have them and have used them against thieves. Bar owners also get permits to keep a six shooter under the counter, so remember to pay for your coffee before leaving the bars here.
Once I heard of a dentist who had a gun. One can only assume that he was rather bad at his profession and that he had quite a few disgruntled customers around. I don’t know. It does seem to be relatively easy to get hold of firearm permits here, as long as you are an Italian citizen.
However, controls are not always as effective as they should be and there was a nasty incident in which a mentally unstable gun owner decided to take pot-shots at passers by from his appartment. He killed a couple of people if I remember well. It transpired that he came from a wealthy family and his relatives had obviously been able to convince the authorities to give their son a gun licence. If you know the right people and have a bit of cash to splash, most things are possible here in Italy.
You may be asking just why Italy has so many police forces, Carabinieri, Polizia and Polizia Municipale. Well, I have posed this question and the answer I’ve received on a few occasions is that the Carabinieri and Polizia are kept separate because of an ancient Italian fear of there being a coup.
You should also know that the two police units also carry out basically the same job. Some guides to Italy will tell you that the Polizia can be a little difficult to deal with, however I have met and had some dealings with the Polizia and I’ve always found them to be fine. You do get some stroppy coppers, but these exist in the UK too. I speak Italian, so this probably helps both them and me a lot, as you may understand.
The Carabinieri are on the whole from a slightly different social class and I understand that many are university educated, which means that they are probably the best port of call for a non-Italian speaking foreigner who has had problems with petty theft and the like.
I almost forgot, there are the Guardia di Finanzia people who have guns. These people are responsible for enforcing tax regulations, a bit like armed tax inspectors. They wear grey uniforms and do not generally get involved with the public.
Well, that is all the city and town people who are gun toting, but if you go off into the countryside you may come across the good old shotgun. These are often used to shoot tiny little birds and other things which come into the sights. These things include wives who annoy you and old friends who cross that line. There is often a news item about some old boy who has gone and shot his wife, or someone else who became too much to put up with.
Having waffled on about all the guns, I have to say that I have never ended up in the middle of a gun battle and have never really seen any policeman with his gun drawn, apart from on the TV news.
I don’t have any problems with people carrying guns, as long as they are trained appropriately and not trigger happy, but for someone who comes from an island where guns have been all but banned, it comes as a bit of a shock to see so much fire-power in evidence. Having said that, though, Italians do not get all their feathers ruffled whenever there is some gun related crime and go ahead and ban all people from owning the things, unlike back in the UK. At least Italians are able to understand that the actions of one madman do not represent the actions of the vast majority.
OK, I’ve taken my best shot at explaining the gun situation here. I shall bite the bullet and not write about this subject again. Whoops! The puns got a little bit out of hand. Wasn’t aiming to do it. Something just triggered it off, I guess. Maybe this entry was a little off-target. Come to Italy and see the sights. Enough.
Tags: carabinieri, guardia di finanza, guns, Italians, law, police, polizia
