Five million Italians own guns to protect from burglaries

ROME – Five million Italians own guns and would be willing to use them to protect themselves from burglaries and the amount is set to increase, according to the most recent Censis-Verisure report quoted in Il Messaggero. 

Almost five million Italians, or 8 percent of the population, have a least one firearm in their house to protect themselves from burglaries. In Italy, citizens are required to have a permit to own a gun. The report, however, does not state how many of the five million already own guns for reasons such as hunting. Although according to the Censis-Verisure report the number of house invasions has decreased by 8.6 percent from the same period in 2024, Italians are more fearful than ever of break-ins.

At least 88.9 percent of Italians have some sort of anti-theft device in their house and 59 percent of Italians say that burglary is the crime of which they are most afraid of being subjected to. This hardly comes as a surprise, as at least 14 million Italians – over 20 percent of the population – have been victims of a burglary at least once.

This has led to an increase in people owning guns. Other solutions such as burglar alarms can be seen as being too expensive, leaving people to turn to firearms. According to the report, 52 percent of Italians believe it should be legal to shoot a burglar.

This news has been met by a warning from lawyer Cesare Gai, who stressed that “self-defence is justified in cases of trespassing when there is a threat to one’s own safety or that of others” and that there must be no “desistance”, meaning that “if a thief is running away, you cannot shoot [in self-defence].”

As the fear of burglaries increases, more and more Italians are resorting to guns and will continue to do so.

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