Finns propose ban on handguns after shootings

[Guest]

Best of luck for our Finnish friends. Copied from: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 524S86.DTL

Finns propose ban on handguns after shootings
By MATTI HUUHTANEN, Associated Press Writer

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

(02-17) 06:06 PST HELSINKI, Finland (AP) --

A Finnish government commission on Wednesday proposed a ban on semiautomatic handguns after two school shootings in recent years left 20 people dead.

The ban, which needs parliamentary approval, would sharply reduce the number of legal weapons in a country that ranks among the world's top five in civilian gun ownership.

"We've had a very weapon-friendly culture," commission chairman Pekka Sauri said. "In carrying out the proposals we would, of course, pay compensation to anyone who turns in weapons."

The Nordic nation of 5.3 million has 650,000 licensed gun owners. Of some 250,000 handguns, more than 200,000 are semiautomatic, according to Sauri.

The recommendation came in a report on an attack in September 2008, when a 22-year-old gunman killed nine fellow students and a teacher before shooting himself at a vocational high school in Kauhajoki, western Finland.

Less than a year earlier, a teenage student fatally shot eight people and himself at Jokela High School in Tuusula, near the capital, Helsinki.

Both school gunmen fired handguns in YouTube clips posted before the shootings, shot themselves in the head and used similar handguns in the massacres. They had both been teased at school and said they hated the human race.

The report said that the gunman in Kauhajoki "used a self-loading or semiautomatic firearm, which was small-caliber but still capable of inflicting serious damage" and recommended that "only guns that do not allow the easy infliction of such carnage be available for hobby purposes."

The commission also said that the minimum age of handgun ownership should be raised from 15 to 20, and that gun permits be made temporary and require at least two year's proof of shooting practice.

After the two shootings, police have clamped down on handgun permits imposing stricter control and tighter scrutiny of permit applicants.

Finland has a long tradition of hunting. It is ranked fifth in civilian gun ownership per capita, after the United States, Yemen, Switzerland and Serbia, the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey said in 2007 in its most recent report on civilian firearms.

Pekka Aho, commission board member and Inspector General of the Finnish Police, lodged a dissenting view on gun ownership in the recommendations of the nine-member commission.

"I believe that the practice of responsible gun sports should be preserved in Finland," Aho said. "This recommendation, however, would not remove illegal semiautomatic handguns in Finland ... and in practice it would put an end to sport shooting, even Olympic events which require the use of semiautomatic handguns."

[Freepistol]

Good luck Finland!
Atta Boy Pekka Aho!

What constitutes an "illegal semiautomatic handgun" in Finland?

[Nev C]

The UK disease is spreading.

[thruxtoncamshaft]

TWO PEOPLE KILLED WITH CRICKET BATS OVER HERE IN W. AUST. IN THE LAST TWO YEARS......... NO-ONE WITH A LICENCED HANDGUN!!!!! REGARDS THRUXTON.

[David Levene]

TWO PEOPLE KILLED WITH CRICKET BATS OVER HERE IN W. AUST. IN THE LAST TWO YEARS......... NO-ONE WITH A LICENCED HANDGUN!!!!! REGARDS THRUXTON.

While we were still fighting for our pistols backin 1996 Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh, publicly stated (in a TV interview) that pistols were no more dangerous than cricket bats. Unfortunately it didn't do us much good, other than give us the opportunity for a bit more publicity when our National Squad delivered a "thank you" letter to Buckingham Palace.

Hopefully Finland, with it larger proportion of the population who shoot when compared with the UK, will be able to fight off this legislation.

[Philadelphia]

We teach every kid to read, write, history, science, etc., etc., etc. Maybe somebody should think about "coping skills" and anger management as required curriculum? It's not guns. We've had guns for a long, long time. People are becoming more and more nuts.

Another in a long line of political shell games to ignore determining and addressing the true root causes and instead going after the quick, easy sound bites.

[joker]

We teach every kid to read, write, history, science, etc., etc., etc. Maybe somebody should think about "coping skills" and anger management as required curriculum? It's not guns. We've had guns for a long, long time. People are becoming more and more nuts.

Another in a long line of political shell games to ignore determining and addressing the true root causes and instead going after the quick, easy sound bites.

Very well stated. I also believe that coping skills and anger management are instilled by education and parental responsibility - another social virtue that is evaporating very quickly.

[roostonu]

It figures this story is in the sfgate. I'm sure California will be using this story to fuel it's own anti-gun legislation.

[Misny]

We teach every kid to read, write, history, science, etc., etc., etc. Maybe somebody should think about "coping skills" and anger management as required curriculum? It's not guns. We've had guns for a long, long time. People are becoming more and more nuts.

Another in a long line of political shell games to ignore determining and addressing the true root causes and instead going after the quick, easy sound bites.

Actually, in the USA, homicides of all kinds (including those with firearms) have been steadily in decline. The spectacular rare acts of mass murder stay in the public's minds however, erasing this fact. No matter what laws are passed, there will still be people who will go off the deep end and use any means at their disposal. Case in point is the nut who yesterday flew his airplane into the IRS building in Austin, Texas.

[Philadelphia]

Case in point is the nut who yesterday flew his airplane into the IRS building in Austin, Texas.

By coincidence, that's exactly what I was thinking of. Otherwise "normal" Joe Schmoe suddenly flips off the deep end. Just crazy. Given the options available to deal with whatever problems he was having, why does he choose crazy stupid? There is something there.

Something is wrong and it's certainly not as simple as guns, guns, guns in the press all the time.

[Freepistol]

Case in point is the nut who yesterday flew his airplane into the IRS building in Austin, Texas.

By coincidence, that's exactly what I was thinking of. Otherwise "normal" Joe Schmoe suddenly flips off the deep end. Just crazy. Given the options available to deal with whatever problems he was having, why does he choose crazy stupid? There is something there.

Something is wrong and it's certainly not as simple as guns, guns, guns in the press all the time.

It seems like everything I do is under attack! I shoot and I fly small planes. We were just getting people to believe that the small planes used by general aviation were not instruments of terrorists and now we have this nut. Then we have that arrogant black woman on Good Morning America ready to confiscate any tool used for violence. I sure get tired of the fight with unreasonable yeahoots.

I haven't heard of any investigation into the procedures of the IRS. Perhaps they should look there, or maybe all the evidence was burned.

[Hemmers]

Heh, I'd like to know what this "commission" is. We have some of those in the UK. The "Gun Control Network" and the "Infer Trust" for instance, run by the same 4 rabid anti-gun campaigners painting themselves as an "official" group, or somehow representing a large membership - even though neither is a members association or has registered supporters.
The derive the entirety of their disproportionate influence from the fact one of the 4 founding members is married to a millionaire MP, which got her on the Firearms Advisory Committee and got her privileged access to MPs and lawmakers.
Despite this, the GCN has the audacity to term the UK shooting lobby as "rich and powerful". Not as rich and powerful as her and her husband, that's for sure!


Finland has a (very) strong shooting grassroots, and I suspect this will be given little credence by their parliament.

[Ernie Rodriguez]

A couple of comments on proposed Handgun ban. What is the point of studying history when people do not learn from it?? Why not have MANDATORY parenting skills class in high school?? It seems whenever a tradgedy,involving guns,happen-in most cases there were telltale signs that something was wrong. In many cases people just didn't do anything about it. If people are so horrified when something happens involving a gun-are they also horrified when deaths occur because of alcohol?? I don't hear them wanting to ban liquor. Is it because money has a priority over deaths caused by alcohol?? Too many politicians take the easy way out by looking at the firearm as the main cause to a very complex problem.

[Philadelphia]

I haven't heard of any investigation into the procedures of the IRS. Perhaps they should look there, or maybe all the evidence was burned.

I hear you but what I was more getting at is it's not the guns, it's not the airplanes, and it's not the fascism of IRS tactics -- it is how ordinary people deal with everyday life and the choices they make.

It is just now in the past few days that it gels in my mind: generally humans need, in addition to schooling in reading, math, science, history, etc., etc., schooling in "coping." In the past this was provided through the guidance of loving, caring parents. That is long gone in too many families.

Along the road of life for any population, there are going to be bullies in the school yard, there will be divorces, there are going to be custody battles, the IRS might harass you, on and on. These are not really extraordinary happenings. I wonder if, as said before, required curriculum for every student should include some form of counselling to give everyone the tools needed to deal with these relatively minor adversities of life without going flipping out crazy.

Taking away guns and planes and whatever else is a strategy doomed to absolute failure. Witness the case in, I think it's New Jersey, where some wigged out father allegedly threw his infant child off a bridge in front of its mother. Do we eliminate bridges?

[zoned]

.....why not have MANDATORY parenting skills class in high school??....

Ernie, the question then becomes who will teach, and what will be taught? There is a lot of ignorance and naivete just about everywhere in the U.S. these days. Common sense slipped a gear starting back in the 60's and 70's with flower power and THC. Those idealists got into the educational system and have been teaching fantasy and fear ever since. What is taught is governed by those who were taught.

[Mike M.]

It seems like everything I do is under attack! I shoot and I fly small planes. We were just getting people to believe that the small planes used by general aviation were not instruments of terrorists and now we have this nut. Then we have that arrogant black woman on Good Morning America ready to confiscate any tool used for violence. I sure get tired of the fight with unreasonable yeahoots.

Amen! On all counts. Flying in the Washington DC area is a PITA already.