Khizan posted:

You see, we need guns because the solution to mass shootings is a bunch of untrained people with minimal range time and dreams of heroism engaging in unaimed panic fire.

Miranda posted:

Thanks, I appreciate your input. So when we have all these shootings, what do these people say is the answer?

Sockmuppet posted:

Well, yeah. And not get involved with organized crime. It helps that there are fewer people around with guns that we need to defend ourselves from. It's just not a big thing people go around worrying about, other than the usual common sense measures you take to stay safe in a big city. The possibility of a home invasion has never occured to me. It's probably because I don't own large amounts of valuables, I'm sure paranoid pensioners who keep their money under their beds worry more about it than I do, possibly gun ownership is more common among them.

Last year (I think) there was an above average number of rapes here, and there was much in the media about how women should and could protect themselves - aquiring guns was not even mentioned as a possibility, or brought up at all. The entire culture is just so completely different, which is why the "MAH GUNS!"-reaction a lot of people in this thread are having, is incredibly strange to watch. The current big media debate is whether or not the police should be allowed to carry weapons at all times (which they've been doing for a while as an "emergency measure" against terrorism - but it's not an emergency measure when it's been going on for close to a year, so people are asking if they should make it official or just go back to the old ways.)

There are actually 1.3 million registered guns owned by the civilian population of Norway (there are slightly over 5 million people living here in total), and 1 in 10 people own one or more, but guns are for hunting and sport, we just have a lot of hunters (over 200 000, apparently!) and people shooting for sport. Owning a gun for self defence is a completely foreign thought for everyone exept lunatics and criminals who feel they have to defend themselves against other criminals with guns.

Rudager posted:

Is it really that common for people to just break into homes and cause injury or death for the fun of it in America?

You never hear of anything like that here in Australia. It's usually people breaking into houses to steal stuff, getting surprised by the person living there and then they might freak out and throw a punch or two before legging it, but just wanting to hurt someone is far from the reason they broke in.

The only time I ever hear about people breaking in specifically just to hurt someone is when the people involved know each other already.

wiffle ball bat posted: