“An especially dangerous kind of firearms have come to be used, which are called wheelock, with which a homicide can easily be committed. His Excellency, knowing that these are devilish arms, prohibits their being carried without explicit authorization, under penalty of having a hand publicly cut off.”
–City Ordinance, Ferrara, Italy, 1523
This is one of the first gun control laws ever penned. Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (yep, they still had those then) passed similar edicts a few years previously, and the first gun-grabbing legislation took hold in Austria and the Netherlands.