Guns & Roses

In my post yesterday I didn't mention gun control as one of the means to stop violence, for one simple reason: I want to write a whole blog entry about that topic.

My posision on this issue is clear: we must restrict people's access to guns more.

This decision has not come easy for me.  My gut feeling tells me it's not the weapon, but the man behind the weapon that is dangerous.  Furthermore, grownup people should take responsibility for their own actions.  However, I've come to realize that "grownups" is just a technical term for someone past the age of judicial maturity.  In reality many people are irresponsible and can't make logical decisions.  So we have to protect ourselves from their possible actions towards us.  We even have to protect them from themselves.

Many years ago, my best friend shot his brains out with a revolver.  He was a member of a pistol club, but didn't attend meetings there.  The police knew about that.  Another member of the same club was a local policeman.  The police also knew that my friend wasn't entirely stable.  So they were thinking about taking the magnum revolver away from him.  While they were thinking about this, he killed himself.

Why didn't the police act before?

Why haven't we learned anything from this incident, and many more like it?

As I lay down a rose on my friend's grave, I can't stop thinking that he would've lived today if he didn't have access to a gun.  I'm sure of that.  Maybe 68 people at Utøya would've lived today too, if last week's terrorist couldn't get his hands on a gun.

Let's face it: very few people need to own a gun at home.  So let us purge the society for civil guns.  Let us make new laws that restrict the new licences for guns to those who really need it, and prove they can handle it.  That'll reduce the gun count to a fraction of what it is today.  As it should be.  The police should carry arms, not civilians.

Still pouring down

As most other people I'm still kinda dazed after the shock.  I'm talking about the terror in Norway at July 22, just a week ago.  It's time to begin thinking about what to do next.

How will this affect the norwegian society in the long run?  What is the right thing to do now?  I guess the answers to these questions depends on who you are and what you mean.  My personal opinion is that we have to do a lot to try and prevent this tragedy from ever happening again.

• Give the police more resources - the people, tools, and money they need to do a proper job.  This means more sivil surveillance, better computer systems, more helicopters, armed officers at all times, more police in the streets, and so on.
• Norway should have a prison sentence type which lasts a lifetime, that is a sentence which the prisoner will be in jail until he/she dies.
• The judicial system should be changed, so that if one has killed many people, one should get sentence time added for each and every killing, not just one of them.
• The judicial system is too much geared towards rehabilitation and a humanized prison time.  The problem with this, in combination with short sentence times, rebate on multiple crimes, liberal leave practises, and the lack of a revenge element in norwegian law, to name just a few, is that people in general lose respect for the judicial system and also criminals.  It's a joke and everybody laughs - the criminals laugh of joy and other people laugh of despair and disbeleif.
• Somehow we must be able to spot young people going off track, and try to correct them before they go amok against the society.  Do we have the means and methods to do that today?  I doubt it.  We can do better.  My personal opinion is that upbringing is a key element.  It's important that everybody is taking part in a child's upbringing.  The school must work with the parents, the sports club must work with the parents and the school, and so on.
• Yes, we must also strengthen the democracy.  Include people more in processes, be more open and available, and enlighten people better on democratic processes, to name a few.  I hope the Prime Minister's talk about a better democacy and a more open society isn't just words.

So far, the aftermath debate has not been good, in my opinion.  For instance, people have unintentionally formed "This is what we think and so should you!" circles in online fora.  The tone is very agressive towards people with original thoughts, who they disagree with or don't understand.  I'm not talking about extreme views, but ordinary opinions who should not receive such reactions.  It's sad if a we-stick-together-now feeling should result in what we see now.  It's going the opposite way of more openness.