You're best friend just got married. Your son was just circumcised. Fenerbahçe just clinched a big game. Why not celebrate by firing off a few rounds? Only one small problem: festive stray bullets kill hundreds of people in Turkey every year.

This shop is one of many like it that you'll find in a small underground passage at a busy intersection in Karaköy, Istanbul. Although these pistols fire only blanks, we're told it wouldn't take much to convert them to the real thing.

Turks, as much as Americans, love their firearms. One government official stated: "We are a martial culture and we have our traditions." Gun laws here remain a stumbling block to entry into the EU.