I'm writing a a short story set in 19th century Europe and I'm can't seem to find much information on peasants and guns. Was it common for peasants to have guns/rifles? Were rifles expensive? Were bullets expensive? Any extra information about the subject would be useful too!
I can't imagine them being cheap, but I'd think a decent hunting rifle would be a must, if the law allowed. Flint locks or Match locks would be what you're looking for in the early to mid 19th. The later years would include cartridge rifles. First, you're going to have to zero in on what part of the century you're working with. The industrial reveloution and foundry advances did make fire arms cheaper to make and sell as the years went by, but if you're talking 1804 you may still be looking at one at a time hand made products. This might help a little bit... http://www.understandingyourancestors.com/asl/buckinghamshirePeasantLife.aspx
This is conjecture, but I’d expect guns to be plentiful. Guns became popular in the first place because, provided they’re not ornamental, they were fairly cheap and very easy to use, and a coward’s weapon, so the perfect pick for a peasant. Back in the day there was no police as such, so every community had to defend themselves from bandits, wild animals, and occasionally even foreign invaders. Besides that peasants often scavenged battlefields. Gun banning laws are relatively new, depending on the country, some are still accepting of guns in rural areas. Besides, that’s when the British colonial Empire reached its peak, and what colonialist would want to go off to inhabit some god forsaken place with cannibals as neighbours without a trusty gun? 19th century was full of assassinations or attempted assassinations by the means firearms. That’s when they became compact and reliable to a sufficient degree, but make no mistake, those assassinations were a thing since long before. Its relevant, because that’s when the idea of gun laws started to come about. However... A story that also comes to mind is that of the Russian commie exiles in London, testing the bombs that they’d later use to kill the Tsar, out in the open, in London’s Hyde Park. And that was almost the 20th century! They obviously weren’t peasants, and it’s outside your time frame, but the story illustrates well how easy going people were about gunpowder machinations in the not too distant past. There was something else regarding the subject that I wanted to mention, but it escapes me now... Was what I said even helpful?
I can't speak for all of Europe, but 'peasant' implies they don't own the land they live on. So poaching game might be a factor. It certainly was (and is) in Britain, and ordinary people still don't tend to own things like deer rifles, etc. It would have been illegal, even perhaps fatal, to be caught hunting on property that wasn't your own. Even things like rabbits and birds. (And if you weren't hunting, why did you need a gun?) So that might be a factor. I'd definitely look into that aspect of the country you've chosen for your story, before plunging ahead. Think of the cliché about Frankenstein's monster ...peasants go after him with pitchforks and axes. I think, if they'd had guns, they'd have gone after him with guns, don't you reckon?
Ohh I remember what else I wanted to say. Dueling. It was outlawed most of Western Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, but it still happened, and continued to be legal in Eastern Europe for the next couple of hundreds of years. You can look into that as well, shows guns were plentiful and people were quick to draw. Like the poster above says, it very much depends on where the story is taking place. Feudal Japan was not far from Feudal Europe, and I don’t know how credible this is, but I’ve heard that as a fish eating nation, they’d need a knife to gut fish. But each village was allowed to keep only one public blade. Still, if you were to watch Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, you will see that the peasants did scavenge and keep a lot of things. Don’t expect them to have any “cutting edge” tech though. Also, significant groups of mountain bandits were a thing until the 19th century, at least in Eastern Europe. And of course they had guns . Edit: I once heard that in Russia, around the emancipation of serfs, the army owned only one firearm per three soldiers. Even so, I don’t think guns were an unusual sight.
Also you might expect peasants to have older weapons like smoothbore muskets or shot guns which are cheaper and easier to make.
Reading over all these answers, I'm tempted to say this: research your specific location and time period as thoroughly as you can. Don't assume anything. 19th century 'Europe,' peasants and guns is too vague a topic. Narrow it down.
Peasant is the wrong word here. In most cases the feudal system had long left Europe by this time period, meaning that there was no peasantry. Just the lower classes.
