Why mass shootings won’t change Serbia’s gun culture

Two mass shootings in Serbia have left 17 people dead, many of them children, and there are protests on the streets of Belgrade. Demonstrators blame Serbia’s populist president, Aleksandar Vucic, and so Vucic has his own series of anti-gun rallies planned and has ordered a swift crackdown on gun ownership, a ‘practical disarmament’.

But Vucic has his work cut out for him. Weapons are embedded in Serbia’s culture and it’s hard to imagine a significant number of Serbians simply handing them over. In Serbia, the gun is a way of life.

When I worked in the Balkans as a journalist, a man felt underdressed without a Kalashnikov. Provincial streets thronged with men with AK-47s loosely draped over them. In the more sophisticated Belgrade, apart from the Kalashnikov-ed heavies hanging around the Hyatt Hotel (home of the press centre and gangster central), the weapon of choice was a pistol, generally worn with jeans, T-shirt and leather blouson.