After a crazed killer opened fire at the Risbergska School in Örebro’s Västhaga district about 125 miles west from Stockholm on Tuesday, the U.S. media is paying very close attention to what is happening in Sweden.
The reason is simple: Sweden’s government, according to Firstpost, “announced on Friday (February 7) that it would move to amend the country’s gun laws, imposing stricter restrictions on semi-automatic weapons.”
The Firstpost headline says it all: “Mass shooting: Sweden to do in a week what US couldn’t in years– limit access to semi-automatic guns.”
Sweden is not the United States, and a look at the Swedish Constitution shows one important thing is missing, any semblance of a Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms that cannot be infringed.
Still, that’s not stopping widespread media attention to the announcement from Stockholm Friday.
The New York Times headlined its Friday coverage thusly: “Sweden Moves to Tighten Gun Laws After Mass Shooting.”
The Times report was quick to include this: “The proposal has not been formalized, but it will likely strengthen the basic requirements for acquiring a gun license, instructing the police to take into account age, weapons knowledge and skills as well as the person’s criminal history. It will also likely call for broader checks on the applicant’s medical history.”
This sounds similar to the kinds of gun controls Democrats and other anti-gunners want to impose in the U.S., namely licensing of gun owners to include proof of firearms knowledge, and an extensive background check to include possibly invasion-of-privacy medical history scrutiny.
MSN is reporting the incident claimed 11 lives, including that of the suspected killer, identified in European press reports as Rickard Andersson, 35. He lived in the community of Örebro, he was unemployed and had apparently “lost contact with family in recent years.” MSN’s headline: “Sweden to tighten gun control laws after mass shooting in Örebro.“
There is something else in the MSN report. Police said the suspect “was found with three weapons that were registered to his name. (Emphasis added). Lying next to him were large amounts of unused ammunition as well as gun licenses for four firearms.”
MSN also reported that SVT (Sweden’s equivalent of NPR), said the police reported “an automatic firearm as the weapon used.”
Firstpost is reporting that the proposed gun control measures, “agreed upon by the ruling coalition and the Sweden Democrats will specifically curtail civilian access to semi-automatic firearms, such as the AR-15, which authorities say is capable of inflicting significant damage in a short span of time.”
If that sounds familiar, it is almost identical to the rhetoric of U.S.-based gun prohibition lobbying groups. Watch for them to start referring to the Swedish tragedy and raise questions why the Congress cannot take the same swift action.
U.S. gun rights advocates will quickly explain why. Such an effort would immediately hit a nasty speed bump known as the Bill of Rights, and specifically the Second Amendment.
Firstpost was careful to include in its coverage, “The US accounts for 46 per cent of the world’s civilian-owned firearms, according to data from the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey. The country also ranks highest among developed nations in firearm-related homicides.”
Another report, from The Guardian—a U.K.-based publication—says this about the Swedish government’s action: “The government said on Friday it wanted to reimpose restrictions that existed before 2023 and develop a strategy to seize military-style weapons.”
Over the years, various American political figures, including presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Kamala Harris, have intimated they would like to handle gun control in such a way, perhaps like the government of New Zealand did following a terror attack in that island nation. There was a mandatory “buy-back” (as if the government owned private citizens’ firearms originally), which U.S. gun rights advocates such as Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, have called “compensated confiscation.”
The Guardian also reported, “Swedish hunters, of whom there are hundreds of thousands, are able to apply for licences for semi-automatic weapons. In August 2023, the environmental protection agency lifted a ban on military-style models, meaning guns such as the AR-15 were permitted for hunting.”
In the U.S., tens of thousands of licensed hunters use modern semiautomatic rifles for hunting, especially for predators such as coyotes or bobcats, and small to medium-sized game. The AR platform is now adapted to more potent rifle calibers than just the .223 Remington/5.56mm NATO. Nowadays one finds such rifles chambered for various 6mm and .30 calibers including the .308 Winchester.
While no motive has been reported, and the investigation continues, this shooting once again undermines the contention by the gun prohibition lobby that such crimes happen “only in America.”
One similarity between the attack in Sweden and the most notorious of U.S. mass shootings was reported by Yahoo News.
“Investigators have said the alleged shooter in Örebro was previously unknown to the police,” Yahoo said. “They believe he acted alone and that the shooting was not an act of terrorism, but the motive for the crime remains unclear.”
According to The Independent, the shooting victims included seven women and four men. The killer is believed to have taken his own life, another similarity to U.S. mass shootings.
