In Impromptus today, I have a note — just a small note — on the Norway massacre. If you want to read a really good post, see David Pryce-Jones, here. In my column, I recall a conversation I had with a staffer at the Norwegian Nobel Institute last year. He told me that the police in his country are unarmed. He said this with some pride. I thought, “It doesn’t seem to me that police ought to be unarmed. What if others do have arms?” But people are entitled to their own ways; societies are entitled to their own ways.
Norway will probably be a different country after last week. This morning, I read the following in a news article: “When word of the shooting came, police drove rather than take a helicopter because the crew of the sole chopper available to them was on vacation.”
That occasioned another flashback: A man who spends a lot of time in Norway told me, about three years ago, “Don’t try to reach a government official at his desk in the summer. It’s impossible.”
In another news article, I saw this: “[The killer’s lawyer] said Tuesday his client was surprised he even made it onto the island without being stopped by police, never mind that he was left to fire his assault rifle and handgun for so long.”
Obviously, the police in Norway have come under heavy criticism from their countrymen, as well as from foreigners like me. A murderer was allowed to hunt down human beings for a full hour and a half, completely unopposed. Everyone else was unarmed. You can kill a lot of people in 90 minutes, if you have guns and no one else does.
But I found somewhat poignant — just a little poignant — the following sentences, in the second article I’ve linked to: “Police spokesman Johan Fredriksen rebuffed criticism Tuesday of the planning and equipment failures, calling such comments ‘unworthy.’ ‘We can take a lot, we’re professional, but we are also human beings,’ he said.”
Police in norway can easily access guns- they just dont carry them on a day to day basis. The issue was a lack of helicopter transport.
But qudos in trying to make the take away lesson from this into a pro-gun thing rather than a conservative christian anti-muslim fundamentalist thing ;-)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat part of "easy access" includes "they need guns flown in by helicopter"?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"You might not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." (attributed to Leon Trotsky)
Can you possibly understand?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHaving to wait for guns to arrive from headquarters is plenty of time for the killer to kill another 10 or 20 innocents.
Nothing beats having the cop on hand already armed.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Nothing beats having the cop on hand already armed."
How about having civilians armed and able to defend themselves?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI really don't think that America can lecture other countries on how to deal with gun crime.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI really don't think Europe can lecture America on the pointless murder of innocents.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHas it tried to?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYes. On the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, where Paris renamed a street after this thug.
External Link
Justice for Daniel Faulkner!
CAPTCHA phrase: know your rights.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhen you can tell the difference between Jay Nordlinger, an American, and "America," maybe you can start thinking again.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere is no way a single armed man could kill 90 people over an hour and a half in the United States. None.
In some parts of the country, he would have been taken down before he fired his first shot.
Obviously, Norway's gun laws did absolutely nothing to prevent this man from doing what he did. Don't pretend a law stops criminals.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI don't believe Norway's gun laws are as prohibitive as many other places in Europe (or a few places in the US). It seems to be more the culture than any gun laws that disarmed everyone - including the police.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis is exactly true, and is one of the strangest things about the whole event. Even in a gunless society, why weren't people rushing him during reloads, or at least running away and hiding? Not sure we'll ever know the real story about how this happened; pretty obvious the government in Norway has already gone into the "whitewash" mode.
Has anybody noticed that as soon as armed cops showed up, the crazed, armed gunman surrendered?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNobody is lecturing on gun crime. We are lecturing on the response to gun crime.
Once you understand the difference, you will look marginally less like an idiot.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell "marginally less" would be good I suppose.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe thing is WE ARE being lectured by liberals telling us we ought to be more like Norway.
No, thanks.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt's all weird. The lack of urgency of the police, the Norwegian utopian 'how could this happen to US?' attitude, the ideological indoctrination of children, adolescents and young adults at a yearly summer camp - weird. It's all weird. No doubt what happened in Norway is deeply sad and disturbing, but talk about drinking the soup.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseExpat,
Perhaps you missed it, but an unarmed policeman was among the first to die on the island. His access was, unfortunately, not quick enough.
External Link
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnyone interested could off course check out Norwegian crime stats. Then, probably marvel and feel a sting of jealousy. The reason why there's a lack of helicopters available is trivially that a) Norway is a small country, and b) Norwegian violent crime is so low they usually don't need it.
This guy, Breivik, is to present day conservatism what the RAF was to communism in the 70s. A true believer that thought that mainstream conservative beliefs - promoted by people like Pat Buchanan, Glenn Beck and NROs very own Andy McCarthy - meant that liberalism was such a threat that he had to bomb his own capital and gun down seventy teenagers in cold blood.
But all the best Jay in your pursuit of a silver lining. God knows we could all use some cheering up after that horrible tragedy.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNot sure that Glenn Beck, Pat Buchanan and Andy McCarthy should be lumped together as 'mainstream conservatives' who may have influenced that Norwegian shooter (who, by the way, is criminally insane, and not a 'true believer' in any meaningful sense); for Beck is bipolar and Buchanan and McCarthy have rather opposite views on the proper American response to expansionist radical Islam.
Nor do I understand the comparison of Breivik to the RAF.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse