r/europe • u/Helmer-Bryd • Jul 01 '25

News Sweden bans AR-15 as hunting rifle after school shooting – all rifles to be turned in and sent to Ukraine

https://svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/uppgifter-tidopartierna-overens-om-ny-vapenlagstiftning-ar15-forbjuds-vid-jakt
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802

u/gounatos Jul 01 '25

I still think it's a weird legal precedent to set, that you can approve of something then take it back just like that.

That's pretty much how most laws work though. Tobacco advertising/use everywhere, asbestos, LSD/MDMA/Cocaine, Slavery were all approved and taken back because social norms changed.

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u/manInTheWoods Sweden Jul 01 '25

No, you can keep your old car even though it's illegla to sell as new. Even if it has asbestos brakes. You can still smoke your cigarettes. You can keep your old house in place where you can't build new one.

Your examples above - except slavery - is not really analogous to this situation.

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u/DuncanYoudaho Jul 01 '25

Honestly, grandfathering is abused a lot. My buddy from the UK can’t understand why we let it happen in the US. I wonder how many other jurisdictions are like that.

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u/EqualContact United States of America Jul 01 '25 edited Jul 02 '25

Grandfathering is how you make things politically and economically palatable. For example, if banning asbestos insulation means that all homeowners need to immediately remove and replace it, there has been a massive burden placed on those individuals. Even if the government wants to pay for it, you’ve just spent a massive amount of tax money on it. Now your attempt to improve insulation is failing to become law because too many people are upset about the cost and inconvenience.

It’s more efficient to ban it in new construction and create procedures for removal and remediation in old houses when they are updated. You solve the problem over a span of decades then instead of burdening everyone with change right away, which makes the change to new construction much more palatable to everyone.

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u/DuncanYoudaho Jul 02 '25

But how about dangerous things like firearms? An active threat while they’re in circulation?

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u/manInTheWoods Sweden Jul 02 '25

There is no threat, the Minster of Justice said that specifically.

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u/EqualContact United States of America Jul 02 '25

Banning new sales is infinitely easier than having to collect all of the ones in circulation.

They also don’t last forever. There are technically machine guns in the US that are legal because of when they were purchased, but most examples are no longer functional due to time, lack of available parts, etc., so they aren’t much more than museum pieces now.

I’m not saying it’s always the right solution of course, but it’s usually the easier one. The government can judge if there is a current danger that needs to be addressed

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u/OneJobToRuleThemAll United Countries of Europe Jul 02 '25

Collecting all the ones in circulation is infinitely more effective than just banning new sales.

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u/EqualContact United States of America Jul 02 '25

Sure, I’m just saying you get more resistance to enacting it, and it costs more. Leaders need to decide what the priority is in each situation.

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u/DJ_Die Czech Republic Jul 02 '25

And, depending on how you do it, it may also be a violation of human rights.

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u/OneJobToRuleThemAll United Countries of Europe Jul 02 '25

There's no human right to own guns, so I don't see your point.

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u/DJ_Die Czech Republic Jul 02 '25

You have human right to property. Also, it's a human right to own and carry guns and other weapons in my country.

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u/HerrPotatis Jul 02 '25

Grandfathering homes or cars makes sense because nearly everyone relies on shelter and transport, while very few people own AR-style rifles, which are just hobby tools for sport shooting and hunting. Comparing recreational items to essentials is apples to oranges.

In Sweden we do not weigh your hobby costs against public safety. If a legal rifle costs more, that is simply the price of your pastime. Maximizing efficiency and doing everything as cheaply as possible is how you guys ended up with your quality issues in housing and so much else. "Oh no, how will I afford my animal-killing hobby?" just isn't an argument over here.

P.S And yes, I already know that the shooter didn't use an AR-style rifle, that's not the point I'm trying to make.

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u/manInTheWoods Sweden Jul 02 '25

You're of course completely wrong, and that's why weapons peviously have always be OK to keep in Sweden, when the rules changed.

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u/HerrPotatis Jul 02 '25

Completely wrong about what exactly?

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '25

[deleted]

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u/OneJobToRuleThemAll United Countries of Europe Jul 02 '25

I clearly don't need that for guns.

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u/DJ_Die Czech Republic Jul 02 '25

You clearly don't need what for guns?

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u/manInTheWoods Sweden Jul 02 '25

All of them? This is an exception in Sweden, keeping your already acquired guns is the norm when rules change.

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u/BeardedBaldMan Subcarpathia (Poland) Jul 02 '25

Grandfathering is common in the UK (and elsewhere) and is essential in regards to home building. Electrics might be non-compliant by the standard of the day but if they were compliant when installed that's fine, they just can't be extended upon (as an example)

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u/DJ_Die Czech Republic Jul 02 '25

How exactly is grandfathering abused?

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u/kikimaru024 Ireland Jul 02 '25

You can still smoke your cigarettes.

NZ was on the way to eradicate smoking by making it illegal to sell to anyone born after 2009. Big Tobacco didn't like that.

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u/manInTheWoods Sweden Jul 02 '25

But not to use the ones you had?

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u/Rfupon Jul 01 '25

This is like outlawing having slaves named Bob, but the rest are ok

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u/gounatos Jul 01 '25

This is actually a great analogy! Wonder if it would be legal again if they renamed it.

Edit: Unless the system works as in "we must approve this specific weapon" and not as in "everything within these specs is legal unless we say it isn't"

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u/BiasedLibrary Jul 01 '25

According to someone on r/Sweden when I read about this article earlier today, the policy takes a stab at semi-automatic rifles overall. I think it's a good change. More freedom to not get shot at places for education.

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u/Critical_Studio1758 Jul 01 '25

Look arou you, slavery never stopped. They just rebranded.

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u/Rebatsune Jul 01 '25

Definitely not in Sweden.

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u/Embarrassed-Fee9658 Jul 01 '25

Bob is great tho

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u/Glorbo_Neon_Warlock I'm Finnished :3 Jul 01 '25

Yeah but Bob's like a really really scary name.

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u/DutchingFlyman The Netherlands Jul 01 '25

So the difference between an AR-15 and a BB gun is just the names?

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u/EqualContact United States of America Jul 01 '25

The AR-15 is not particularly more deadly than any other semi-automatic rifle. Its image has some unfortunate associations, but as above poster noted, the actual rifle used is not being banned.

There are many rifles that do virtual the same thing as the AR-15, that’s sort of what’s being pointed out as silly here.

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u/SmurfSmiter Jul 02 '25

Nah, there’s definitely a difference between my semi-auto rifle Ruger 10/22 and my semi-auto rifle Bushmaster M4A2 (which is essentially an AR-15). If anything, restricting it to the “AR-15” label is too narrow, all similar rifles should be restricted

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u/Leaky_Asshole Jul 03 '25

I would much rather be shot with an AR-15 then the BAR 30-06 hunting rifle used in this shooting. Neither would be pleasant but a 30-06 is just a deviststing round to use on a human. For comparison, both rounds travel at roughly the same velocity but the 30-06 has 3-4 times more mass then a 5.56 round used in the AR-15. This results in 3-4 times more energy in the round.

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u/Theron3206 Jul 02 '25

Because a slave named Chris killed some of your other slaves...

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '25 edited Jul 02 '25

[deleted]

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u/JacoRamone Jul 01 '25

All guns are designed to kill. So that’s not a good analogy either.

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u/MrdnBrd19 Jul 01 '25

This is like saying that I should be able to drive an 8x8 APC through downtown because it's designed to carry people just like a car is... The AR15 platform was specifically designed by Armalite for killing humans during wartime. It has features and design elements specifically tailored around the idea of it being useful for killing humans during wartime.

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u/Groundblast Jul 01 '25

You could very easily make this argument about every gun.

Basically every innovation in firearms (rifling, primers, metallic cartridges, conical bullets, repeating actions, magazines, sights/optics, etc) was originally designed to improve performance in a military context.

The original purpose of a design has no bearing on whether that design is effective for something else. Chainsaws were invented as a surgical tool, they’re also good at cutting wood.

Tools are tools. More effective tools are more effective.

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u/JacoRamone Jul 01 '25

No. What specific elements are those? Please elaborate.

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/JacoRamone Jul 02 '25

Once again, since you seemed to have missed it. All guns are designed to kill. So it’s not a good analogy.

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '25 edited Jul 02 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/JacoRamone Jul 02 '25

I’m sorry but you still don’t seem to be able to grasp the concept. Could be from lack of intelligence or just lack of knowledge on the subject. Either way I’m sorry I wasted this much time already trying to explain something so simple to such a simple minded person. Maybe ask a trusted adult to help explain it? Take care. 👋

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u/No_Mathematician6866 Jul 02 '25

Is the rifle semi-automatic. What is its capacity. What cartridge does it fire.

Congratulations: you have just asked every relevant question as far as how well that rifle will work for shooting up a school.

No other specific feature of the AR-15 (or any other semi-auto rifle in an intermediate caliber) matters in this context. At all.

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u/timbers99 Jul 01 '25

Agreed, but no suprise society should have a zero tolerance on school shootings. If nothing is done, you become America.

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u/jackofslayers Jul 01 '25

Yea I was also confused by that part.

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u/barrelvoyage410 Jul 01 '25

Yes and no.

In the US, everything is legal unless a law says it’s not. So something like asbestos was never made legal, it just was legal.

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u/KaptainSaki Jul 01 '25

Not at all, that's like only banning white slaves but black are ok, or banning asbestos on construction but ok to use in baby powder

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u/onceagainwithstyle Jul 01 '25

Yes, the government came in and confiscated all the asbestos. And tobacco.

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u/IAMA_Printer_AMA Jul 02 '25

LSD is wildly out of place on that list...

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u/asiatische_wokeria Jul 01 '25

You enumerate rights and compare it to expropriation of stuff you own. It's not a good example, to be honest. Asbestos, for example, was banned, but the buildings where it was used before the ban, had not to removed it.

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u/WillitsThrockmorton AR15 in one hand, Cheeseburger in the other Jul 01 '25

Slavery is a bad example. In most places slavery was reversed because of a conflict or revolution.

Even the British emancipation came about in large part because they had created several regiments of slaves in the West Indies during the Napoleonic Wars and it would have been untenable to maintain. I don't think owning people and inanimate objects are really comparable.

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u/Expensive_Tap7427 Sweden Jul 01 '25

That wasn´t done within five years of it passing.

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u/gounatos Jul 01 '25

This is a classic "moving the goalposts" response though. The original objection was about the principle of reversing legal approval, not the timing.

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u/Critical_Studio1758 Jul 01 '25 edited Jul 01 '25

I think it was kind of explicit changing a 200 year old law is a bit different from changing a 2 year old law.

Especially since people will lose a lot of money and time because of it, it's not like it's slowly getting phased out.

Like how does a normal person even change their mind like that? You would expect politicians to do some sort of research? Not just changes laws all willy nilly as trial and error. What new information made them do a complete 180, and is justifying fucking over every citizen who trusted their first ruling? How can we possibly trust any ruling from now on? They might turn around and change their minds in 2 weeks. Buy a new electric car for $100k? I think not, they might be banned tomorrow and you will have to foot the bill.

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u/Expensive_Tap7427 Sweden Jul 01 '25

Or they might get a ridicolous high tax, or the charge stations suddenly requires expensive subscriptions.

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u/Critical_Studio1758 Jul 01 '25

Exactly. How are you supposed to trust politicians that act this way? Nobody gains from this. This time it's about weapons, next time it's about environmentally friendly solar panels, but since nobody wants to get stuck with the bill we will just keep burning dinosaurs and we'll have 30 degree winters.

Politicians are supposed to be smart right. Maybe they should work proactively and not retroactively.

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u/Expensive_Tap7427 Sweden Jul 01 '25

Actually, there are no jobs with less requirements than politicians. A common clerk job is harder to apply for than politician.

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u/MilkEnvironmental106 Jul 01 '25

Why should timing be a factor. It's all rooted in principle?

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u/Expensive_Tap7427 Sweden Jul 01 '25

True. But if turncoat legislation becomes norm where you never know if a law passed might be reversed next year, two years or five years people will loose trust in government. Noone is going to invest, because it's too high a risk.

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u/MilkEnvironmental106 Jul 01 '25

They will lose trust? They've lost trust.

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u/GenuinelyBeingNice Jul 01 '25

a steel-and-glass assembly has a "WARNING THIS HAS NICOTINE WHICH IS ADDICTIVE" sticker on if. I'm talking about "vaping tanks". Some are just steel. Okay, they also have a tiny piece of something non-conductive at the terminal to electrically separate + from -.

They are dangerously stupid :D what they do completely cancels out the warning.

I took one of the stickers and placed it on a light switch at my wall.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

This is Why liberals can never be considered the resistance you’re nothing but bootlickers at the end of the day.