Decades of disarmament laws failed to end private arms carrying in Sicily

Evidence

If authorities failed to discourage armed strong men, it was not for lack of trying. The effort to repress private force and establish reliable public policing began in 1781, even before the formal abolition of feudalism, and was led by the Viceroy Francesco Caracciolo. Laws and decrees forbidding the bearing of arms were promulgated by the Bourbons in 1806, 1808 (when dueling was outlawed), 1815-16, and 1819, but to no avail. In 1822, and then again in 1827 and 1828, new laws were passed to encourage people to surrender their weapons; but they remained a common accessory in men’s fashion through the 1880s, for all social classes. Frances Elliot ( 1987), who traveled to Sicily in 1880-81 , attended a party given for the city elite by Palermo’s leading industrialist, Count Ignazio Florio. She observed: “What struck me most was the sight in the lobby of a table literally covered with all sorts of weapons, handguns, revolvers, knives, sticks, daggers, left by the people invited together with their hats! Such is life in Palermo!” — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 204

Categorization

• CANDY: The Florio party anecdote — a table of weapons alongside hats in an elite Palermo drawing room — is a vivid, self-contained image perfect for light conversation.
• SHARE: This specifically contradicts Weber’s monopoly-of-violence model; send to anyone working on state capacity or gun control history.