Guns in the street: police fear common criminals will imitate mafias

BarcelonaThe trigger was a trivial matter. The argument started with a comment like "are you looking at me funny" and one of the involved parties left. But he returned with an electric scooter and shot at the group he had argued with. This happened a week ago in the Raval district of Barcelona. Two people ended up arrested and no one was injured. This is one of the cases that shows, according to police sources, that it is being detected how firearms are appearing more and more often in new contexts, situations that are not linked to organized crime or large drug mafias.

Catalonia has registered six shootings in the last week, all in the metropolitan area and all without injuries. Furthermore, the problems are diverse: from an argument to a conflict between family clans, as happened in El Prat de Llobregat. The incident ended with 32 shell casings and five cartridges on the ground. In this case, as ARA has been able to ascertain, the family responsible for the shots has been expelled from the neighborhood, a common dynamic among these clans. Two more shootings occurred in fights in Nou Barris – the last one early Thursday morning – one in Bon Pastor – on Friday night to Saturday morning – and the sixth case is that of a man who fired several shots in the air in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat while arguing with a woman.

The cases have little in common beyond the fact that, according to police sources, they show that there are profiles that have little inhibition when it comes to shooting. In fact, the proliferation of firearms in the country in recent years, as the same sources explain, originated with marijuana plantations. Criminal groups are increasingly armed. However, one of the fears of the Catalan police is that there may be a certain mimicry by local delinquents, who normally were not armed, but now feel the need to acquire a pistol.

"Arms race"

And this doesn't only happen in Catalonia. A recent European Commission directive aimed at combating firearms trafficking speaks of an "arms race" among criminals, a kind of cold war that leads people to arm themselves. The same directive adds that this is also caused by the fact that there are more and more weapons on the market and it is easier to obtain them, with online purchases being one of the keys to the problem. Furthermore, there is a high risk that surplus weapons from current conflicts will end up filtering into illegal markets, similar to what happened after the Western Balkans conflict, the same report states.

Figures show that incidents in which someone has displayed or used a handgun – excluding situations of gender-based and domestic violence – fell in 2025 and have decreased in the first five months of 2026, specifically by 7.8%. However, there are figures that are rising and causing concern, such as the case of real firearms, which in 2025 accounted for 28% of the handguns drawn in these incidents. In the first quarter of 2026, this figure increased to 35%. It is also concerning that the cases in which the weapon is actually fired are increasing: by last May, these cases had increased by 32% compared to the same period in 2025. They had already risen by 35% compared to 2024.

Police sources reflect that with firearms, it may be starting to happen like with bladed weapons. The Mossos have been detecting for some time that people who never used to carry weapons are now leaving home with a knife. The fear, therefore, is that a similar effect may be generated with handguns. For example, it greatly surprised police authorities that the minor murdered in Parc de la Pegaso was killed with a firearm, as until then they thought that the youth gangs established in the city used machetes, but not handguns. The EU report also identifies that these weapons are not only used for drug trafficking, but also facilitate a growing range of gang violence, extortion, and robberies.