Thread: Firearms: The Common Person & the Criminal

Here in the USA they actually do have some pretty stringent gun laws. There are the federal statutes and each state has their own regulations as well. These regulations vary from state to state but are consistent in every state in certain things. In every state an individual who has been convicted of a felony or suffers from mental illness is prohibited from possessing a firearm. Most states have a waiting period of a few days from the time you pay for the firearm to the time you can take possession. They also have back round checks.

All this is if you are buying the weapon in a store or a gun show. Private sales between individuals are not regulated, at least not in the state that I live in. There are plenty enough laws on the books and in states such as NY, NJ and Mass. they are quite severe but apparently only effective in controlling people who respect and abide by the law. The problem isn't a shortage of laws, rather a shortage of enforcement.

I cannot have any comment on the right to carry gun there in the U.S.A as we have little different culture and attitude towards hand guns and ownership of such.
In Finland there are somewhat more guns than in any average European country but they are usually guns that are used for hunting: Rifles and shotguns etc. Pistols and revolvers are in small minority. Getting a license for 9mm is difficult. Still it is relative easy to get a license for at least smaller calibers.
There is no such right as a general right to carry a gun. Nobody is allowed to carry a gun 'just in case' or for self defence. Police and small group within civil security personnel are carrying guns, but only when on duty. The same goes with military. Carrying a gun when off duty without a proper reason (hunting, on a way to the shooting range etc) is illegal.

Typical Finnish crime with serious violence involved is usually (and sadly) made between people who already know each other, say family members, friends etc. Almost always in these cases people are seriously drunk. I do not know the exact numbers but almost all of these crimes are made with knife or some other sharp or heavy object. Not with a handgun. And i think it is because people have not so much handguns. I also think it is a fact that if there were more handguns there would be much more bodies as well. And not for self defence.
A good friend of my wife, and a godmother of my daughter died like this about 10 years ago. One night as she was sleeping, his husband drunk himself mad, and shot her in the back of her head. Then he shot himself. Their 3 kids were sleeping in the next room. The man was a hunter. All his guns were legal.
Our two school shootings were made with legal guns by their legal owners.
A quick search from the world of internet told that the last time when police was actually shot dead when on duty was 1997. Even then the shooter was Danish. After that murder there has been only one death of a police on duty. 2007 police officer died when drunken soldier hit him with a car.

Of course even here it is always a small change to get robbed or assaulted, but i do not remember when it was the last time somebody was robbed with a handgun. Foreign criminal gangs and drug gangs are an exception. They sometimes use guns in their own wars but it happens in somewhere distant areas, forests etc, away from witnesses.

That is one reason i think we are doing ok here although we could always do better. As long there is no real and realistic risk to find oneself looking at the gunpoint, there is no reason to get a gun for self defence. I have to repeat that this is how it is here. Our system probably wouldn't work somewhere else, or we cannot even be sure how long does it work even here.

There are surely many reasons for and against the right to own/carry a gun. Some a very true; say in Jimmys story i can easily understand that people are carrying guns for self defence. There are other examples that speak against such right. Yet the question is not so black and white. It is related on where and what kind of culture we are living, what are our traditions and attitudes about using violence as a primary way to deal with the problems. And understanding that sometimes violence is maybe the only way to survive against those who use even greater violence.

I can't say if i have any real opinion on right to carry a gun. I have about 20 years of service in a military. All this time i've handled weapons, big and small, explosives etc. more than i can remember.I have a gun of my own, but i never have brought it home. I do not lock my doors.
I've never been threatened with a gun in Finland or when off service. Few times i've faced a knife as well as few times i've been assaulted. Decent speaking/wrestling/running has always helped. But this is here and not in a big world.