Looks like Finland, one of the few countries left in Europe with a healthy shooting and sportsmen’s culture, is considering banning handguns in response to the latest mass shooting there. Finlands laws for handguns are already rather strict, and would be a dream for gun control advocates here. My understanding is that licenses for them are on a may-issue basis, and police will only generally issue permits for .22LR pistols. Any other pistols not suitable for “sporting purposes”, with the police getting to define what that means, are denied.
Notice you don’t see the Brady Campaign dancing in the blood of these victims? Curious isn’t it? Maybe because Finland already has the restrictions the Bradys dream of, and it goes to prove that when gun owners agree to them, it’s only a matter of time before politicians, faced with a tragedy like this, say “That’s it folks, time to turn them in.” It also doesn’t fit their narrative that this is a strictly American phenomena, because of our lax gun laws.
And they keep telling us we’re paranoid.
Again, I’ll ask my question (without shamelessly linking to my post!) – Why are there calls for controls after a tragic shooting, but not calls to relax the laws after dozens upon dozens of stories of self defense each week?
I don’t know. I have been talking with a friend over there and his only mention about 45’s was that if I move back and bring my 45 with me, that I should seriously consider taking up reloading as a hobby as ammo is expensive.
One problems the Finns have is that the country is awash in unregistered handguns and heavier weapons mostly leftover from WWII.
A second problem is that Finns are not shy when it come to killing people with anything they can get their hands on. One summer ago one guy went into a store, stole a knive and killed the first person he ran across, some unlucky Dutch tourist. There have been I think two axe attacks recently, one on a metro train. When I was living there, my favorite news headline was “Engineer kills wife with frying pan.”
I don’t think will result in much, if any changes in the law other than perhaps raising the age limit for owning a gun. However, that would have had no effect in this case as he was already 22.
Well the Finnish prime minister is all ready to enact stricter gun laws. Guess he can’t wait to replicate the peace and security enjoyed by the Brits since England pretty much banned guns. Oh…wait….um….England is a bad example. Look at Chicago instead…no, wait. District of Columbia, yeah that’s it.
Uh….hmmmm……
Is it too late for the Fins to rethink this?
Fred, why is it a problem that the country is ‘awash’ with unregistered weapons? Every article I’ve ready about the shooting says that crime overall in Finland is very low. All those unregistered firearms & weapons don’t seem to be doing the damage, the kid used a pistol he had a permit for.