People under 18 in the European Union will be banned from buying a gun from 2010, but lawmakers said the measure adopted this evening will not ensure that this month's school shooting in Finland will not be repeated.
The European Parliament voted to update the bloc's firearms rules and bring them in line with a UN protocol. Everyone will need a licence to buy a gun and it will force change in countries like France where a 16-year-old can buy a firearm.
People convicted of a violent crime will not be allowed to acquire a firearm at all, but youths under 18 can use a gun for hunting or target-shooting with parental consent.
Finland had opposed parts of the proposal but softened its stance after Pekka-Eric Auvinen shot dead six children, the school nurse and the principal in a Tuusula school this month.
Auvinen was 18 and obtained a licence for a .22 caliber handgun from a shooting club in October. Finnish MEPs backed the measure, with Britain's eurosceptic UKIP party voting against.
"We had to strike a balance between the right to legal trade in weapons and justifiable security concerns of our citizens," said Gisela Kallenbach, the German Green Party member who steered the measure through the EU assembly.
"We know we can't put a 100 per cent stop on the abuse of weapons," Kallenbach said.
Finland helped secure a right for under 18 year olds across the EU to use a gun for hunting, a national pastime in a country where some 300,000 youths shoot moose and elk to cull a key cause of fatal road accidents.
Finnish centre right MEP Alexander Stubb said the new rules would have made no difference in the school shooting case as Auvinen was 18.
"It's not going to be more difficult or easier to acquire a weapon in Europe because of this legislation but there is better control of who has acquired one," Mr Stubb said.
For the first time 'convertible weapons', such as blank firing guns which can be modified to shoot live bullets, will be classified as firearms under the new controls that will track purchase and ownership for up to 20 years from 2014.
Marking requirements won't apply to weapons already in circulation.