Vesna Pejović has vowed to reduce gun violence in Montenegro after her daughter and two grandchildren were killed in a mass shooting in the town of Cetinje in 2022. But on January 1, news broke that sapped her remaining optimism.
A fight in a bar sparked another incident in the country’s picturesque old capital, when a gunman killed 13 people with an illegal firearm before shooting himself.
"We had to relive all our nightmares," said Pejovic, 63, who has been lobbying politicians for three years to introduce stricter gun controls in the small Balkan country. "We are devastated again because we have not been able to gain anything, even though we have been striving for this with all our hearts and souls."
Montenegrin Prime Minister Milojko Spajic announced stricter gun control measures in the wake of the shooting, including stricter licensing rules. It also set a two-month deadline for owners of illegal weapons to hand them over.
But the limited impact of previous gun control measures in the Western Balkans underscores how difficult it is to eradicate violence in a region littered with millions of firearms left over from regional conflicts and where a culture of gun ownership has persisted for centuries.
Even as governments enact tougher laws, many cash-strapped countries lack the resources, and sometimes the will, to enforce them, three experts say. Part of the reason, they say, is that the arms trade is controlled by powerful criminal groups. Inaction, they say, fuels insecurity in the region and potentially in the neighboring European Union, where Balkan weapons often end up.
"It is important not only to have good legislation, but also to be able to maintain and enforce your legislation," said Niels Duque, director of the Brussels-based Flemish Peace Institute, an independent research body. "The fight against illegal firearms is a very difficult task and I think a lot more needs to be done," he added.
Montenegro already has a voluntary and impunity weapons transfer program, in which tens of thousands of them have been handed over. Some of the weapons were used to build a monument called "Bird of Peace" in the capital, Podgorica. However, the program has failed to do much to stop the illegal trade.
After the 2022 shooting Pejović lobbied for stricter gun control legislation. She helped introduce the so-called Marko and Masan law, named after her deceased grandchildren. The law, however, never passed, although a draft for stricter legislation was proposed last month.
"Acquiring a firearm here is like buying bread in the store," Pejović stressed.
MORTALITY
The breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s triggered a series of bloody ethnic conflicts that left 6 million surplus firearms in the Western Balkan countries - Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and North Macedonia. The latest data from a small arms survey from Switzerland shows that only half of them have been collected or destroyed.
By January 27, three weeks after Prime Minister Spajic's call to hand over illegal weapons, Montenegrins had handed in 1,535 weapons.
A similar situation occurred in Serbia in 2023, when, according to police data, civilians handed in 82,000 weapons, over 4 million rounds of ammunition and around 26,000 rounds of ammunition after two mass shootings.
Bosnia has also had a similar program in recent years. Experts welcome these efforts, but statistics cast doubt on their success.
Up to 100,000 illegal weapons are thought to still be in circulation in Montenegro, said Djordje Vukicevic, vice president of the Independent Police Union of Montenegro.
Gun-related incidents in the region, including accidents, suicides, threats and violent crimes, increased by 70 percent annually between 2019 and 2024, according to data from SEESAC - a regional arms control initiative supported by the UN and the EU. During the same period, gun-related deaths, excluding suicides, remained relatively flat - between 100 and 150 per year, the data showed.
The death rate from gun crime in the Western Balkans is at least 30 percent higher than in the largest EU countries, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The black market for Balkan weapons also affects other regions. Balkan weapons are often sought after around the world because they are cheaper, according to the office.
"The fact that firearms manufactured in Western Balkan jurisdictions were used in several terrorist attacks in 2015 and 2016 in Europe and continue to be used across the region in various criminal contexts is a cause for concern," the office said in a written response to questions from Reuters.
Some changes may help. In November, Western Balkan countries agreed to harmonize their gun laws with the European Union and impose restrictions on illegal weapons.
As part of the UN-backed "Hermes" project, launched in 2023, Bosnia has stepped up postal and customs checks that have cut off the path of firearms destined for countries as far away as Japan and the United States, said Davor Ilić, an expert advisor on the prevention of smuggling and crime at the Bosnian Indirect Tax Administration.
"Efforts to reduce illegal weapons have shown measurable and positive results, but the problem of smuggling and illegal trade persists," Ilić noted.
GUN CULTURE
Montenegro, with a population of 616,000, is an increasingly popular tourist destination for wealthy Europeans, drawn to its mountains, valleys and Adriatic coast.
Montenegro also loves guns.
A strong gun culture stems from centuries of wars with the Turks, Venetians and Austrians. Today, it ranks third in the world in gun ownership per capita, with 39.1 firearms per 100 people, according to the Swiss-based Small Arms Survey.
In 1910, Montenegrin King Nikola Petrovic ordered all men in the country to purchase a "Gasser" revolver, later known as the Montenegrin revolver, in order to bolster his small army and deter invaders. The pistol became part of the traditional attire.
The affinity for guns is evident everywhere. Next to the restaurant where the shooting began on January 1st, there is a church fence made of antique musket barrels captured by the Turks in the 19th century. Across the street, two cannons guard the entrance to the former royal military barracks. Antique weapons adorn the walls of living rooms, restaurants and bars throughout the city. And gun control is not popular.
"My generation (…) grew up in homes where guns were an integral part of the household," says Velimir Rakocevic, a forensics professor in Podgorica.
This culture is reflected in much of the region. In Kosovo, where there are hundreds of thousands of illegal weapons, police say gun violence worsens in the summer, when people celebrate weddings by firing bullets into the air.
A mural painted on the outside of a police station in the Kosovo capital, Pristina, depicts a wedding scene in which a man shoots into the starry sky while a child watches. The inscription on the mural reads: "Celebrate with heart, not with guns".
Translated from English by Simona-Alex Mihaleva, BTA