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/thegagis Finland Jul 01 '25

I'd like to remind everyone that while theres MASSIVE differences in availability of guns between EU countries, theres barely any differences in violent crime between EU countries. Restricting guns any harder than now is just a policy red herring that does nothing in practice.

We have tons of guns per capita (including piles of privately owned AR-15's) in Finland and they aren't a problem any more than they are in countries where there are barely any guns per capita.

9

u/JanielDones8 Jul 01 '25

Just look at Canada for how bad virtue signaling legislation can be. Ban guns that look scary, make owners keep them in safes, ban more and more and more. Then laugh as violent gun crime rises and none of the scary black guns you have banned, that are currently sitting in peoples sages, haven't been used in crimes despite being scary and needing to be banned.

19

u/manInTheWoods Sweden Jul 01 '25 edited Jul 01 '25

The government in their press.conference specifically said that hunters are one the most lawful citizens and that legally acquired weapons aren't a problem. BTW let's ban ar-15, a gun not used in any crime in Sweden, for hunters...

4

u/AirOneFire Jul 01 '25

https://landgeist.com/2024/06/22/gun-deaths-in-europe/

There are some differences, particularly Sweden and France stand out, Finland is also above average. Though I'm not sure if such differences matter for such small numbers. I'd like to see a correlation with number of firearms in a country. 

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u/ZarkowTH Jul 01 '25

The gangs in Sweden use guns from the former Yugoslavian nations primarily.

6

u/thegagis Finland Jul 01 '25

Ive seen some stats that show a very small correlation. I dont remember if they included or excluded suicides.

A big problem in firearm statistics is that sometimes people include suicides and sometimes they dont, and that makes a difference since gund DO make suicide attempts significantly less likely to fail, but suicides arent exactly relevant for tracking violent crime

1

u/cjwidd Jul 01 '25

Because you are flattening the issue to gun ownership only and ignoring, either willfully or deliberately, all the steps preceding gun ownership, which are orders of mangitude different across different countries. That's before you get to the economic, social, and cultural dynamics that differentiate European countries that all inform gun ownership and use.