Re: SV: [SG2] You'll never take me alive, coppers:Was RE: PA availabi lity

On Tue, 22 Sep 1998, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:

> criminals used assault guns so far this year; there was an... incident
> some years back when a madman took an AK-4 and fired straight into a
> queue waiting to get into a night club some years back, 

You neglected to mention that the said madman was an army officer, and
he
used his army issue rifle. Hardly your typical criminal.

> the MC gangs in
> the south of Sweden seem to favour AT-4 anti-tank weapons or SMGs, but
> have used assault guns as well, and so on.

...stolen from the Swedish army... as always, criminals don't seem to be
affected by gun control laws.

> Don't try telling me those crimes are myths. Criminals, at least in
> Sweden, *do* use anything from zipguns to assault rifles and anti-tank
> weapons. Of course these crimes make up a very small percentage of the
> *total* criminality, when there's one heavily-armed incident every
> two-three months or so and a few thousand minor crimes a day, but that
> doesn't make the bad ones a "myth".

Depends on what you think the myth is. I think the myth is that every
petty criminal has an Uzi in his glove compartment and uses it in daily
business. This is simply not true.

I do think the percentage is important. Media coverage of crimes
involving
so called "assault weapons" is totally out of proportion. It appears to
me 
people don't realize that while every "Uzi crime" hits the headlines,
countless "regular" murders go unreported or buried in a small
paragraph. 
The myth is that countless "Uzi murders" go similarly unnoticed (at
least
in Scandinavia). No they don't. They're all on the front page of
Expressen (or whatever).

Yes, if you have a couple of incidents per year, it's often enough to
justify some preparation for the next one. But frankly, it's no grounds
for overreaction.

E.g. A man was killed by a bear this summer in Finland. It's the first
such incident in 100 years -- but now we have people who want to
basically
kill all the bears to prevent it happening ever again. This is what I'd
call a reaction out of proportion. 

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