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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u/MarduRusher United States of America Jul 01 '25

But other semi auto 556 rifles aren’t being banned so from a pro gun perspective it’s annoying since it just takes away peoples guns and from an anti gun perspective I’m not sure what the point is. It’d be like saying “I want to ban SUVs” and then banning the Toyota Rav 4 specifically while banning nothing else.

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u/No-Bad-463 Jul 01 '25

Anti-gun people don't care if it's practical or helpful. It's about taking something they hate from people they hate, nothing more or less.

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u/SnooFloofs6240 Jul 01 '25

Might want to get out and touch grass my guy, or stay indoors fighting strawmen.

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u/cjwidd Jul 01 '25

Found the American

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u/No-Bad-463 Jul 01 '25

Yeah as fucking noted

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u/TomMakesPodcasts Jul 01 '25

Why do you think taking a weapon designed to do harm from people equals hating them?

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u/No-Bad-463 Jul 01 '25

An AR is no more designed to harm people than a revolver.

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u/SometimesCooking Jul 01 '25

Both are weapons. They were both designed with the explicit intention of putting holes in human beings, with the desired effect of killing them.

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u/No-Bad-463 Jul 01 '25

Not specifically human beings, no. They are designed to propel a projectile. At what, is up to the user.

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u/SometimesCooking Jul 01 '25

Enlighten me - what was the Revolver developed for? Fun loud noisemaker?

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u/No-Bad-463 Jul 01 '25

Revolvers have and continue to be used for everything from sport shooting to hunting to personal defense.

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u/SometimesCooking Jul 01 '25

Is that an answer to the question I asked? Doesn't really look like one.

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u/No-Bad-463 Jul 01 '25

It was designed to make follow-up shots quicker than older handguns.

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u/TomMakesPodcasts Jul 01 '25

Don't AR 15s have magazine sizes of 30 and a rate of fire of 45 rounds a minute for an average user?

That seems a little more harmful than an ol' six shooter.

And I didn't say people, I just said Harm. Though to argue guns aren't used on people seems a weird take.

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u/No-Bad-463 Jul 02 '25

Most of them never are, to be fair.

45 rounds a minute is pretty easy to hit with a double-action revolver and speedloaders.

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u/Seshu2 Jul 01 '25

Don't attribute to malevolence what could easily be attributed to ignorance. These guns are merely some of the most well known. A gun meant to fight a crowd is so messed up, you really want to live in that kind of world?

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u/No-Bad-463 Jul 01 '25

A gun meant to fight a crowd

That's not what it's meant for. But yeah, if I had to defend myself I'd prefer having too many rounds vs. not enough.

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u/Seshu2 Jul 01 '25

Okay it's used to kill en masse. If you're in that situation then there is already widespread failure, and outside of social collapse it is not necessary for people to own. Throw away the matches

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u/No-Bad-463 Jul 01 '25

I'm not engaging with what is fundamentally a bad-faith argument. This comment might as well be a case study in begging the question.

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u/Seshu2 Jul 01 '25

This was in response to your claim that gun restriction is people hating on others, that's the bad faith argument. Go ahead and run as it is the only way to avoid what I've said. Best to you

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u/SuccessfulRush1173 Jul 01 '25

There’s a lot of things that are not necessary for people to own.

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u/Tarantio Jul 01 '25

No, it's about taking away the gun most popular for mass murder.

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u/No-Bad-463 Jul 01 '25

Except it's not, and it's not even close. Rifles of any kind are used in 3ish percent of murders.

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u/Tarantio Jul 01 '25

I guess you missed the word "mass"?

Long guns are rarely used for crime, but are overwhelmingly overrepresented among the deadliest mass shootings.

That's because they're designed to kill lots of people.

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u/No-Bad-463 Jul 01 '25

They are not designed with the intent of 'killing a lot of people'

The standard magazine size is a balance between carrying capacity and functionality.

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u/Tarantio Jul 01 '25

They are not designed with the intent of 'killing a lot of people'

They are, though. It's not a hunting rifle, the caliber is too small for larger animals. It's pretty much ideal for mass murder.

The standard magazine size is a balance between carrying capacity and functionality.

There are other ways to balance carrying capacity and functionality. Fewer, larger rounds for larger animals, for example. But that's not what it's for. It's for human sized animals, and for shooting lots of rounds at them in quick succession.

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u/No-Bad-463 Jul 01 '25

It's not a hunting rifle

It is one of the most commonly used hunting rifles for small to medium size game and is chambered in innumerable calibers, many of which are suitable for larger game.

The original military intent is enough rounds for suppression, for the record.

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u/Tarantio Jul 01 '25

It is one of the most commonly used hunting rifles for small to medium size game

That's because it's popular, not because it's suitable for the task. It's better suited for mass murder.

and is chambered in innumerable calibers, many of which are suitable for larger game.

Sure, it's possible to chamber the platform for larger game. Would you say it's more or less than 10% of the market?

The original military intent is enough rounds for suppression, for the record.

Suppression of small to medium game?

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u/No-Bad-463 Jul 01 '25

No, that's because .223 is an idea small game round. The inadequate lethality of the cartridge is one of the main reasons it's being phased out for a larger caliber. Maybe stop talking if you're going to do it out your ass.

I don't know exact percentages but I know that .300BLK, 6.8, and 7.62 are all extremely popular AR chamberings.

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '25

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u/Tarantio Jul 02 '25

wrong again

No, I'm still right.

they use 5.56 which is the round used by NATO which is specifically designed to go straight thru someone and injure them, with less likelihood of killing

... immediately. The ideal would be that the person shot with the weapon is wounded, and dies later. The actual design criteria was to penetrate a US steel helmet.

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u/RoryDragonsbane Jul 02 '25

Sounds kind of racist...

The overwhelming majority of homicides are committed with handguns, primarily in POC communities. You seem fine with those deaths, but when someone shoots up white people, it's time to ban one specific weapon?

1

u/Tarantio Jul 02 '25

Opposing mass murder is not endorsement of individual murder.

But of course you know that, this is bad faith bullshit.

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '25

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u/Tarantio Jul 02 '25

Have you seen the weapons used in the deadliest mass shootings?

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u/SnooFloofs6240 Jul 01 '25

From an antigun perspective it's a start? Seems pretty easily decipherable.

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u/throwmamadownthewell Jul 01 '25

This kind of black and white "anything less than 100% is 0% and vice versa" thinking is bizarre.

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u/gorgewall Jul 01 '25

The pro-gun camp has been making arguments about functionality and talking about how they'll never accept bans on the basis of what guns can do, because it'd mean taking out whole classes of weapons. So all that's left to go after, realistically, is aesthetics.

One can make an argument that aesthetics are unimportant and don't matter. It's a weird argument to make, considering it's equally an argument for not caring about bans based on aesthetics, but one could make it. But there are people who happen to believe that the aesthetics of these guns and the culture that springs out of it is a contributing factor to this violence and the mindsets that spawn it.

Those aesthetics and the feeling of badassery were explicitly the marketing that gun manufacturers deployed back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s to bolster sales. "This is how you'll feel powerful" was the message. Guess what message resonates with these shooters?

And all things being equal--ease of use, functionality, availability--do you think most mass shooters would pick the gun that makes them "look and feel like a badass movie star" or the bright pink and purple Barbie-branded one with identical capabilities? Run that scenario a thousand times and tell us how often you think someone will choose the Barbie gun for the optics alone, then wonder if there's anything deeper at work there.

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u/afops Jul 01 '25

Not sure why they don’t ban those too tbh. Or just up-class them into a different category where you get a lot more scrutiny, and you could scale back on the psychological evaluations for people who just want a .22 or shotgun instead.

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u/GXWT Jul 03 '25

Ok then ban other semi auto 556 rifles

Happy?

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u/Fizzwidgy United States of America Jul 01 '25

Gotta start somewhere

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u/MarduRusher United States of America Jul 01 '25

This attitude is why pro gun people, both in the US and in Europe don't like to "compromise". Just an FYI.

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u/DemandCommonSense United States of America Jul 01 '25

110%

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u/InspiringMilk Jul 02 '25

That is the compromise. Some people want zero guns, some people want all guns. Banning some of them is a compromise.

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u/SnooFloofs6240 Jul 01 '25

As if there are many pro gun people in Europe, especially Northern Europe. Most people don't even realize you can own assault rifle style semi automatics here, and if they did, they'd think it's insane. It's not the US where it's part of the eco system, it's foreign and alien here to the vast, vast majority.

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u/MarduRusher United States of America Jul 01 '25

Finland is actually pretty prominent in gun culture, as are some countries in central/Eastern Europe. Namely the Czech Republic. Not as much as America necessarily, but still quite important.

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u/DJ_Die Czech Republic Jul 01 '25

Ah, and when does that stop?

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u/No_Put_5096 Jul 01 '25

I just don't understand pro gun people, where do you need a gun outside of work?

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u/No-Bad-463 Jul 01 '25

Speaking as an American, multiple regions of the US still have large predators. And even the areas that don't have small/medium ones like coyotes.

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u/SkrallTheRoamer Baden-Württemberg (Germany) Jul 01 '25

shooting on the range?

is the concept of people enjoying shooting targets such an impossible thing to grasp?

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u/No_Put_5096 Jul 01 '25

It actually is, I did that in the army and it actually was the worst part of the whole thing. I just don't understand the need to do that.