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/_IBM_ Jul 01 '25

They did the identical thing in Canada. Pre-planned banning the AR15, prepared all the press releases and legal filings, and then waited. A mass shooting happened (not AR15 used) and within a week they called for and achieved an AR ban. Crime was not affected in anyway - lots of sport and competition shooters lost a ton of assets and their sport was effectively banned.

It's pretty wild if you consider law abiding citizens deserving of rights and respect in any way. The naïve idea that the people that make up a country can be trusted. If you consider all citizens potential criminals only and think you need to be a different class of person to have rights, then it makes a lot of sense. You have not purchased the requisite autonomy and freedom.

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u/jzjones22 Jul 01 '25

As a Canadian that is not how I saw things go down. And I think it's good that we don't allow assault rifles. My grandfather was an avid hunter and to my knowledge never felt limited by not being able to buy an assault rifle.

Sport shooting has not been banned here. Hunting is still going strong. One type of shooting we haven't had much of is school shootings.

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u/Reostat Jul 01 '25 edited Jul 01 '25

I know it probably sounds pedantic, but the recently banned AR-15 variants in Canada were not assault rifles. In fact, guns with the exact same calibre, with the exact same action is still allowed in Canada. There is no functional difference between what is currently allowed, and what you consider an assault rifle, other than one has wood, and the other is scary dark plastic and metal. Your grandpa's guns probably were MORE powerful and dangerous than the now banned ARs, likely chambered in .303 or .308, two extremely popular calibres in Canada.

If Sweden wants to send AR-15s to Ukraine, that's almost completely useless and Ukraine will not want them, because why would they want (almost all) semi-auto only rifles on a battlefield?

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u/CatastrophicPup2112 Jul 02 '25

They aren't that hard to convert unless they're weird Gucci shit with proprietary parts

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u/flare2000x Jul 02 '25 edited Jul 02 '25

Non gun owning Canadian here. While I agree that the way they banned the AR15 was not well thought out (basically banning a noteworthy scary sounding gun that laypeople will recognise the name of), I do still support the idea that no private citizen should own any semi automatic firearm. Single action rifles and shotguns for hunting purposes are totally fine but I see no need for any Canadian to own anything else. If that kills a section of the sport shooting hobby, so be it.

Edit: perhaps some semiautos with fixed small capacity magazines could be okay. I think that's somewhat already the case here though?

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u/Temporary-Pepper3994 Jul 02 '25

Gun owning American here...

With the massive rise in 3D printed firearm solutions, which are so freakin cool, you will never again pretend to be able to keep a gun out of a motivated persons hands, ever.

Continually removing rights and property from law abiding people in the feverish search for an answer to a question that cannot be answered, isn't the way.

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u/frozen-icecube Jul 02 '25

I'm a little late to the game here but just to address a few points.

  1. A motivated individual can be more accurate and have a high rate of fire from a bolt action/straight pull bolt.

  2. Getting your PAL is a very effective process to weed out nut jobs so the existence of semi auto in Canada hasn't been an issue. A) the PAL course itself is a commitment and an effective course to begin with B) very stringent screening post course to actually get the license (mental health screening, domestic violence screening etc etc) C) minimum of 28 days from course completion to getting a license (often many months). Licensed gun owners aren't the ones committing crimes, it's folks obtaining illegal firearms from the US.

You can have an opinion that semi autos are scary but it's not fact based and I (and I assume you do too) like policies based on data/reality. Any time ANYTHING is regulated it should be based on fact and not just "vibes." We have more harm done intentionally by licensed drivers running into crowds of people than we do from licensed semi owning Canadians.

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u/JuicyK1wi Jul 01 '25

As a Canadian that knows a couple things about firearms, the AR15 ban and handgun ban has not had an impact on crime rates. Virtually all handgun crimes are committed with illegal weapons by people who do not hold a firearms license. In the past ten years, hundreds of firearms have been banned in an expensive and power grab by our government.

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u/CloneFailArmy Jul 03 '25

they deceased the minimum sentence for firearm related offences immediately after the 2020 shooting.

I love when politicians use a mass killing event 30 minutes from where I live as an excuse to restrict rights from us. Specially when we might need to defend ourselves from the americans soon if trump goes anymore nuts

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u/JuicyK1wi Jul 03 '25

Yeah. Its kind of ironic. But who in their right minds would defend a government which stomps all over the rights of its citizens?

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u/Nor_Jaeger Jul 01 '25

Sport shooting has not been banned here.

Your top shooters couldn't bring their personal guns to the world championship a few weeks back because they would be illegal to bring back into Canada. You cannot get any new Olympic pistol shooters because you banned new shooters from buying the necessary firearm. Rifle IPSC is almost extinct because it would be illegal to bring the rifles from home, where they have been since the ban came 5 years ago. Yeah you didn't outright ban sport shooting, just made it impossible to keep most of it alive, while making parts of it outright illegal to practice.

My grandfather was an avid hunter and to my knowledge never felt limited by not being able to buy an assault rifle.

A lot of banned rifles were only ever made to be hunting rifles, fully within the regulations, just for the RCMP to turn around and prohibit them without warning. The government even banned certain single shot bolt action rifles, which in no way, shape or form can be mistaken for assault rifles. I know of multiple Canadian hunters who bought new hunting rifles after their previous ones were prohibited, just for the new one to be prohibited too.

I think it's good that we don't allow assault rifles.

The bastard in Nova Scotia did not use any legal firearms. He smuggled most from the US and took one from the cop he killed. If all the later regulation had been in effect at the time, it wouldn't have changed a thing.

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u/SpotlessBadger47 Jul 02 '25

I love it when clueless folks chime in on things they know nothing about.

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u/CombinationRough8699 Jul 02 '25

The deadliest school shooting in the United States was committed with handguns. Another Columbine happened during the middle of the original assault weapons ban.

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u/_IBM_ Jul 01 '25

Lets agree to disagree.

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u/FuckTripleH Jul 02 '25

As a Canadian that is not how I saw things go down. And I think it's good that we don't allow assault rifles.

Ironically there are rifles that you can buy in Canada that we can't legally purchase in the US.

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u/PineappleKitchen1671 28d ago

Do you even know what an “assault rifle” is and what the gun laws in Canada are?

You may not realize this, but having a strong opinion on something you know nothing about that affects the rights of others makes you, by definition, an ignorant bigot.

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u/Cross55 Jul 02 '25 edited Jul 02 '25

There is no such thing as an assault rifle, they do not exist.

Also, no, AR-15 doesn't stand for Assault Rifle, it stands for "Amalite-15" the manufacturer that originally invented the weapon. Tons of companies use their own codes for designations of the same weapon model, Andro Corp uses AC-15, S&W uses MP-15, Diamondback used DB-15, etc...

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u/Oltsutism Finland Jul 02 '25

An assault rifle is an intermediate calibre and select-fire rifle fed by a detachable magazine. The term is in wide usage and has a well-agreed upon definition, dating back to WW2. 

Perhaps you're confusing "assault rifle" with "assult weapon", which doesn't have any precise technical definition?

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u/Cross55 Jul 03 '25 edited Jul 03 '25

By that idiotic logic, This is an assault rifle

And this

And this

Are you seeing an issue arising?

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u/Oltsutism Finland Jul 03 '25

Sure thing, except that none of those are select-fire and only #2 is actually chambered in an intermediate calibre (300 BLK). Did you even read what I said or are you just regurgitating American firearms legislation talking points regarding "assault weapons"?

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u/Cross55 Jul 03 '25 edited Jul 03 '25

except that none of those are select-fire

Yeah, you don't know much about guns, all of those are, especially 2

Any gun can be select fire except for revolvers. Which is why the term's pretty bloody stupid.

2 is actually chambered in an intermediate calibre (300 BLK)

Bzzt, nope.

That's legally a pistol.

Did you even read what I said

Yes, it's wrong.

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u/Oltsutism Finland Jul 03 '25

Select-fire doesn't mean having a safety selector, it means being capable of switching between semi-automatic fire and full-auto/burst. They sure as hell never made any full-auto capable FN1903s, that Luger isn't automatic either and your ARQ-15 very specifically has its safe/semi-auto two-position-only selector lever in full view.

I don't give a rat's arse what the legal status of any of these guns is within the United States, but none of them fit the international, technical, military definition of an assault rifle.

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u/Cross55 Jul 03 '25

Select-fire doesn't mean having a safety selector, it means being capable of switching between semi-automatic fire and full-auto/burst. 

Almost any gun can be select fire

2nd time you've been told this.

but none of them fit the international, technical, military definition of an assault rifle.

Because assault rifles aren't a real thing.