The EU-GUNS project investigates the second life of military rifles and how this seemingly obsolete hardware shaped the relationship between Europeans and guns for decades. #euguns #eugunssnippets #gunhistory #europeanhistory

Old British Martini-Henry rifles — the weapon that helped conquer the British Empire in the second half of the 19th century — were converted into miniature rifles for training young British boys and for use in indoor shooting galleries.

Major manufacturers as well as artisanal gunsmiths converted French Gras and Italian Vetterli rifles into shotguns that were cheap enough to be affordable to many rural hunters and farmers.

An often overlooked consequence of this was that millions of old-model rifles ended up in military stores. Some were sold to non-European countries or used in colonial wars, but hundreds of thousands ended up on the civilian market.

In the last third of the 19th century, major technological changes transformed the world of small arms. The invention of bolt-action rifles and, more importantly, smokeless powder meant that governments had to adopt new military rifle models to avoid falling behind in the arms race.

The next person from our team we would like to present is Assumpta Castillo Cañiz! She earned her PhD from the University of Padova in 2021 with a dissertation on political violence and armed associations in pre-World War I Europe, as part of the ERC project “The Dark Side of the Belle Époque”.

A rifle’s journey often extends far beyond the battlefield it was built for. This image shows members of the Ulster Volunteer Force in Ireland marching in 1914 amid rising tensions over Home Rule. Among their weapons were likely Vetterli-Vitali rifles... #globarms #unipd #dissgea #europeanhistory

Meet our expert on the German gun history, Mathias Foit! He is a graduate of the University of Wrocław, Poland, and the Free University of Berlin, where he defended his doctoral thesis. #euguns #unipd #dissgea_unipd

And sometimes, archival research yields surprises! This pistol was manufactured and registered in 1911 by the Basque firm Esperanza y Unceta. Known as the “Victoria,” it is an adapted copy of the popular Browning 1906 model. #euguns #eugunssnippets #unipd #dissgea #spanishhistory

We continue presenting members of our fantastic research team - today, it's our expert on France, @roxanebm.bsky.social! Roxane Bonnardel Mira is a graduate of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and University of Tours (France), where she obtained her PhD. #euguns #unipd #dissgea_unipd

We are happy to present the conference which will take place in Naples, 6 and 7 March 2026, on "Violence and Empire" Here is attached the CFP including a list of themes we are interested into Deadline for proposals November 16, authors will be notified by January 9

In the coming months, EU-GUNS will further explore the significance of this duality for prewar Swedish shooting sports and the transformation of the role of guns in the public sphere. (Source for the photo: Stockholm City Museum, author unknown)

Not only do the brothers’ outfits help us tell them apart, but they also highlight the simultaneous presence of military and civilian gun cultures at the games.

In 1912, twin brothers Eric and Vilhelm Carlberg competed in the Olympics in central Stockholm. Today, the shooting range has been converted into a recreational park, but the firing point is still visible as a slight elevation. #euguns #eugunssnippets #swedishhistory #olympichistory #gunhistory

Historian Emelyne Godfrey explores how these strategies emerged as responses to growing anxieties around urban safety and women’s autonomy (2010). Source: The Sketch, 6th July 1910 Credit: © Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

In early 20th-century Britain, middle-class women took up jujitsu, adapted everyday objects like umbrellas into tools of self-defence, but also acquired gun models marketed especially to women. #euguns #eugunssnippets #gunhistory #britishhistory Source: A.W. Gamage Ltd.: General Catalogue 1911

Check out my latest in Slate: did the CIA create America's biggest gun seller? Sure looks like it! (gift link) slate.com/news-and-pol...

Why did so many men enjoy picking up a rifle and practising shooting in the German Empire between 1871 and 1914? 📖 Presentation of the book by @camilleriana.bsky.social: Una cultura delle armi (Carocci, 2024) 🗓 29.05. at 17.30 Casa della #Memoria e della Storia #Siscalt #bookrecommendations

EU-GUNS and GlobArms are going to Chicago! We have been accepted to the next American Historical Association's Annual Meeting, where we will present our research on European arms control and gun culture and share a panel with established scholars of gun history. Yay!

Venerdì a Padova! @matteomillan.bsky.social @euguns.bsky.social

EU-GUNS/GlobArms are collaborating with another project on the history of arms, “Linking Arms: Central Europe's Weapons Sector, 1954 – 1994”. We organised our first joint workshop last January. In March, we shared a panel at ESSHC in Leiden #euguns #globarms #unipd #dissgea #recetvienna #gunhistory

Newspaper readers in the 1910s felt they were living in an "age of the revolver", as investigated, for example, by the historian Dominique Kalifa. One of the aims of the EU-GUNS project is to study "the age of the revolver" and its consequences for ordinary people #euguns #eugunssnippets #gunhistory

Meet the team of EU-GUNS & GlobArms, two new and exciting research projects at the University of Padua on the social and cultural history of firearms. In the next few weeks, we will present the profiles of each researcher. Stay tuned for more! 😎 #euguns #globarms #unipd #dissgea #gunhistory

Our colleague and team member, Assumpta Castillo Cañiz, has just published an article on the policies of civil armament and disarmament in Spain (1868-1936), the first article published as part of the EU-GUNS project #euguns #unipd #dissgea #gunhistory #spanishhistory @ayer-revista.bsky.social