Stockholm police seize record number of guns
Published: 9 Aug 12 07:26 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/42504/20120809/
The number of illegal weapons in Stockholm is growing. So far this year 171 pistols and submachine guns have been reported, according to police, an increase of 25 percent since last year.
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Though it is still unusual that young offenders are caught with illegal weapons, an increase is discernible here too, according to police.
“Those who are getting more involved in advanced criminal circles will be making enemies. With contacts in criminal gangs they need access to weapons,“ said Jörgen Olsson of the west Stockholm police, specializing in your crime, to the paper.
According to Olsson, there are two reasons for the increase of weapons in Stockholm.
On the one hand the number of loosely attached gangs of youths on the fringes of larger gangs are growing, and they are quickly making enemies.
On the other hand shop owners are getting used to youths coming in with some sort of weapon, and they want to be able to defend themselves.
According to Mats Lindström, of the Stockholm police, officers are finding mostly pistols, although they are seeing an increase in automatic rifles as well and even hand grenades have been confiscated recently.
“You really don’t want stoned teenagers carrying hand grenades,” said Lindström to SvD.
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There is something else that you wouldn't find very ease 30 years ago in Sweden, but we can't really talk about it, so let's pretend it's all good and enjoy the "enrichment".
Agree with 5 and am once again dismayed at the point of view expressed in post 4.
No public good is served by allowing every lunatic to obtain guns and automatic weapons, and governments should take all reasonable measures to limit the number of guns except for hunting, to keep wolves away from cattle, and in shooting ranges, where they should be stored under lock and key, and of course for police use.
And for those who say that 'normal' people should have the right to own tons of guns and keep them at home, the strict laws are needed because a lot of lunatics are not yet known to their neighbours to be lunatics, and could pretend to be normal people until the day they spray bullets into crowds. When some guy decides to become a lunatic, let him go on a rampage with a butter knife.
And as for the shop owner who 'needs' a gun: let the thief take the money, and call your insurance company in the morning.
''Life time prison for those who has illegal weapon.'' ok, make it 10 years at least and see the difference.
God bless Sweden....
Arnold Toynbee famously observed that cultures do not die from outside causes; they commit suicide. You'll not see a better example of this than what we've got here.
As far as I remember, muslim hardliners are suicide bombers! they dont need gun.
It is white supremacis and racists who need guns to kill brown people: Sikh temple, Norway massacre...
Another fact is that in the last 30 years, Sweden has moved toward far right of the political spectrum and liberalism which naturally is parallel with the quest of guns and gun rights from those responsible for this shift. Remember your beloved America?! Which party defends gun rights?
Unless the shop owner spends all day with a loaded gun pointed at the faces of the customers who walk into his store, a criminal with a gun will be able to draw first and kill him if that criminal is so intent on eliminating withnesses (after first starting a transaction that has the shop owner open the cash register for change). So 99% of time the shop owner with a gun will not survive a robber who intends to kill him.
Most robbers want to rob, and most would rather get all the money without killing someone, for several obvious reasons. Having said that, I am not one of these go soft on criminal types. If the robber instead pulls out a knife, then I hope the shop owner has a baseball bat, and that he is not afraid to use it to deal extremely forcelfully with the robber.
But guns are another type of weapon. Minimize the availability of guns and you reduce the likelihood of both mass murder and other forms of domestic and random violent crime involving guns. Keep the heavy altillery strictly confined to the shooting range, and allow non-automatic rifles out in controlled areas during hunting season from their storage lockers in hunting lodges. But other so called justifications for mass public gun ownership create far more victims than heroes.