The introduction of firearms in Europe was a significant social impact, as well as the creation of firearms, which empowered untrained commoners to challenge aristocrats who mastered expensive arms and armor. Firearms also enriched skilled artisans and disrupted the playing field between the weak and the strong, leading to debates over regulation. The author, Catherine Fletcher, teaches history at Manchester Metropolitan University and focuses on early modern Italy's fractured political landscape. Italy's hostile republics, principalities, and possessions coveted the advantages firearms offered over competing powers. However, attempts to ban firearms were largely unsuccessful, with an 1139 papal decree deemed "hateful to God" as impotent. Many arguments for gun control are found in sixteenth-century sources, including calls for restrictions on the ownership of weapons judged most dangerous, and demands from users that they be allowed to keep guns for self-defence.