MADRID: On paper, Western Europe seems like a gun control utopia. The laws governing firearms are tougher than in the United States. Citizens are less likely to be armed. And the number of gun crimes is substantially lower. On the street, though, there are signs of ominous change.

Friday’s massacre at a school in Germany was the latest in a series of bloody gun crimes around the continent during the last year. The two worst examples were the slaughter of eight city council members in a Paris suburb last month and the killing of 14 regional legislators in Switzerland in September.

The number of guns and violent crimes has risen in France, Germany, Britain and elsewhere. The trend defies laws that have grown more restrictive: The massacre in Germany on Friday occurred hours after the national Parliament passed stern anti-gun legislation.

The problem stems partly from a booming underworld economy. Smugglers based in the war-torn Balkans pump an industrial-sized flow of illicit firearms into the EU. Crime has worsened in much of Europe, despite generous welfare states designed to prevent inequality and social conflict.

The gunman who stormed into a rural police station in the French region of Brittany two weeks ago and opened up with an AK-47, killing a policeman, was a French-born, 48-year-old farmer enraged by a traffic altercation.

Britain has some of the toughest firearm laws in the world. Nonetheless, the statistics are not good. Between April and November 2001, the number of homicides in London committed with a firearm rose almost 90 per cent over the same period a year earlier. Armed street robberies rose by 53 per cent.

British police, once patrolling placid streets, have responded by deploying armed response vehicles equipped to deal with gunmen. Gang and drug activity has propelled an influx of guns, particularly automatic weapons, from the United States, Eastern Europe and Asia, according to Scotland Yard.

French police say Eastern Europe is the source of arms flooding into France, where crime went up 8 per cent in 2001. It is no longer uncommon for police to confront well-trained, paramilitary-style gangs of thieves wielding AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades.

Relatively few Italians own guns. The rules resemble those of Spain. To own a firearm in Italy, you have to be at least 18 years old, have a clean police record, undergo psychological and physical tests and have an official certificate proving that you are capable of handling firearms. —Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) Los Angeles Times.