In light of recent events transpiring in Norway (lone bomber/gunman trying to blow up the Prime Minister & killing 7, then attacking a camp for young political activists and slaughtering about 80 kids & young adults; a camp the Prime Minister was supposed to be speaking at), I’ve already started seeing comments on news sites about how “if someone had been armed/allowed to carry at the camp, this could have been stopped!”. Such comments are A) not helpful, B) make you sound like a right wing SA nutjob, and C) demonstrate a remarkably piss-poor understanding of the Norwegian culture (something I tell a lot of lefties who point to Norway when talking about social welfare and say, “See, it can be done, Norway does it!”).
Norway is a country where the homicide rate is consistently 1/100K or less. Violent crime is also abnormally low, and is usually domestic (or criminal on criminal) in nature. The likelihood of a law abiding person being a victim of violence, where you do not know your attacker, is so small as to be almost non-existent. Hell, the police don’t even carry guns, and it’s not a problem. Even if the population was allowed to carry, I doubt they would. Even in the US, where most states permit it, only a tiny fraction of the population carries on a regular basis.
Norway is a place where the people don’t fear their government, they don’t fear the police, they don’t fear crime, and they don’t fear each other. The possibility of such a slaughter happening probably never even entered their minds.
Maybe if someone had been armed it still would have gone down the same but we will never know. If my kids were there I would love to know someone was armed and could possibly be able to stop something like this..
“Norway is a place where the people don’t fear their government, they don’t fear the police, they don’t fear crime, and they don’t fear each other.”
You used to be able to say this about large parts of the US not all that long ago too. It’s very unfortunate that stuff happens like this. It sure would be nice if things were going the other way instead.
“The possibility of such a slaughter happening probably never even entered their minds.”
That what was happening was so far outside their experiences and expectations might help explain the large number of deaths.
Hard to prepare for something that never happened before.
Now that it HAS entered their minds, though, the question is “how are they going to react?”
My guess is that they will consider their options carefully, decide that one deviant is not going to wreck their culture, and go on as before.
They are secure in their culture, is what mad Rocket was trying to bring out. Socialist, yes, but that doesn’t really matter there, what matters is the culture, and they LIVE theirs, instead of trying to wreck what has gone before, as OUR socialists do. We have turmoil in our culture, because those who would change the culture do so with turmoil, which begets more turmoil in the resistance to the changes.
All cultural change deserves a fair evaluation, and an open evaluation, too. Our proposed change to a more socialist model has been started and rammed down the throats of the previous culture with neither fair nor open evaluation, in fact, the opposite, stealth and subterfuge has been applied for the changes.
That didn’t happen in Norway, which took generations to go from a constitutional monarchy to a socialist democracy, with open and honest debate all along the way.
Our socialists can’t even dream of being Norwegian-like, because they have chosen the fractious Marxist model to cultural change, not the Norwegian model.
BTW, Mad Rocket, your evaluation of the camp as being “for young political activists” is probably off the mark. It was a camp run by their socialist Labor party, but there is no indication of political activism as the camp’s objective. ALL European models of socialism include indoctrinating the youth, and they do not consider that to be activist. We do much the same thing, but through our church groups on the right side of politics here.
…And all this misses the point. If you can think of a good way to use a safe, homogenous high-trust society to stop a madman on a shooting spree that is even 75% as fast and effective as shooting said madman shortly after his spree begins, I’d be more than happy to hear about it — and so, I suspect, would the police in Norway.
Crazies and crooks will have always guns. Yes, in a high-trust society, police can generally patrol unarmed — but I’ll bet they’ve got radios, and men-with-guns available when needed. (The famously-unarmed London bobbies of yore all had whistles and their beats were within earshot of one another — oh, and they carried nightsticks, too).
Most reports say nobody even tried to stop this sicko.
‘Sa darned pity that summer camp didn’t have a .22 range and even two individuals who had access to the guns and a protective attitude towards their peers. I don’t care a fig what their politics might’ve been, some guy shooting people who present no threat to him is exactly like a rabid dog or an injured, angry bear attacking them: something to stop ASAP, using the most rapid and definite means available.
Pingback: SayUncle » The Norway Shootings
Yes that is like people here saying but I live in a nice neighbourhood things like that don’t happen here. The sheep live in denial and denial has no survival value and when evil shows up they are shattered and killed. So Norway (The land of Vikings) eased itself into becoming a big soft target
Rivrdog – Thanks for the clarification about the camp.
RobertaX – I understand your point, and agree that it is suprising that no one charged the guy, especially since at least some of the people there should have completed their military service. I think the island was pretty heavily forested, so there would be places to find cover and concealment.
Honestly, I think The Duck is right, in that the Norwegian culture has reduced the need and desire for sheepdogs in their civilian society, and for the most part, it serves them well. Except when such an anomoly appears, and they are even less prepared to react to it than we are. I do give them credit, people near the island saw the victims running and screaming and drove their boats to the island to rescue survivors, even though they had to have heard the shooting.
Still, Rivrdog is right, they have made a concious decision to create their society, they’ve spent years building that society, and in many ways they have more freedom than we do. It is very likely that they will treat this as an anomoly, and move on.
Related:
http://randazza.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/it-is-a-shame-that-we-are-not-norwegian
Roberta, don’t forget that when needed the bobby was quite happy to call on armed citizens to help out
Also related:
http://partialobjects.com/2011/07/exactly-the-wrong-response-to-the-norway-bombings
Reading the two links above, I notice how badly our understanding of the memtal mechanics behind these deviancies is.
It seem so boil down to a chorus of “Thank Gawd he isn’t one of us (insert name of favorite politico-social group here).
Weak, that’s very weak.
The perp’s 1,500 page manifesto, including “Unabomber” Ted Kazcinsky’s as it does, is a basic rant for the Purity of Norwegian (and European) Essence, as I predicted it would be. He’s a wannabe Hitler, but don’t forget that Hitler was a socialist, too.