Huge Explosion in Oslo + Massacre, 92 Dead! Killer Conservative, Right-Wing Christian

That is indeed refreshing to hear.

And what can they do with the island after this? It's not exactly going to be everyone's choice of a holiday spot now, is it.

What with the whole thing about everyone thought it was an Islamic fundamentalist, then to everyone's shock it turned out to be some Xtian fundamentalist nutter....

What if they turned it into a place of worship, where people from all religions/religious backgrounds can come and stay, or just people who have spiritual roots can go to relax, meditate, do yoga, or even have a party.

That would send a positive message across the world for peace.

They should have a hippy festival there every year around the time it happened as well. I doubt the authorities will embrace my ideas, but imagine what message it would send also to the fundamentalist terrorists. Turning their shit into something beautiful, that's bound to piss them off and might even make them think twice about their bullshit ideals.

 

Well, it's wonderful that Norway wants to remain so 'open'-whatever that may mean. I think it's really not so much a matter of whether Norway is 'open', but just a matter of it being a little naive about itself and its own problems. For example, even after the attack on the major government building that housed the prime minister's office, the government provided not one police officer or security guard to protect the people on that island, many of whom were children of important government officials. And it took the police so long to get there after the call because they couldn't find a boat or helicopter, in a country that's basically a maritime nation that's made up of many islands and much coastland.

And it's a little ridiculous to call this nut a "Christian fundamentalist". He apparently had no formed religious beliefs, doesn't appear to have been a churchgoer (if he'd had any real Christian beliefs he'd have known that it's wrong to kill). And he had all these 'dangerous' 'anti-immigrant' and 'anti-Muslim' views-so what? He emptied his machine gun for an hour and a half into a bunch of blonde-haired Norwegian kids, not immigrants or Muslims!

And he was a member of the Masonic Order-the Masons said they had immediately expelled him-but no one said "Mason commits mass murder".

Norway likes to see itself as being so 'peaceful'-supposedly it's so hard to get a gun there-but this guy legally owned a number of guns because he was a member of a gun club-hell, anybody could join a gun club, say they liked guns, and stockpile weapons-that's not really much of a legitimate reason to legally own a gun.

And to top it all off, Norwegian law doesn't allow anyone to be held for more than 21 years, regardless of what crime they've committed. I'm not in favor of the death penalty, but I think Norwegians need to realize that there are also some people that are too dangerous to be released into society, and this dude's one of them.

So, instead of labeling this guy as a "Christian" "right wing" "anti-immigrant" and all the rest, why don't we just call him what he really is?-a complete freaking lunatic. And Norway needs to be a little more realistic about its problems, instead of pretending it doesn't have any.

 

Firstly, there was no reason for anyone to rush to the island after the explosion, how would they know he was headed there? And in fact, there was one police officer on the island - but not in case of mad gunmen Norwegian cops don't even have guns.

He did not have a "machine gun," as you say. He was armed with a Glock and a Ruger 14, both semi automatic.

As for gun laws, they are quite strict, certainly much moreso than, say, the US (Likely your nationality, eh, Bob?) but as with pretty much any country, if you go through enough red tape and file the proper applications, you can own hand guns and hunting weapons.

As for legitimate reasons to own guns.. Well, I don't think there are any. Yet, lots of people do.

It's true the maximum penalty is 21 years, but they can get around that using legal loopholes. I don't think there's much of a risk of this guy ever being released, and if he is, he is certainly dead anyway.

He's labelled all those things because of what he wrote on forums, in his manifest/book/whatever, and for what he's told police. I don't think anyone disagrees he is a complete lunatic, but those other labels still apply, and it is made clear that it's not just muslims who will resort to acts of brutal terror. But you probably don't want to know about that.

 

I never said anything about Muslim terrorism, or Muslims being the only people that engage in terrorism-I suppose you can read my mind. What I did say was that for all this guy's anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant ranting, he actually didn't attack either one of these groups, instead attacking people of his own ethnic group and nationality.

And some of the witnesses said he approached them with a 'machine gun'-it's a semi-automatic rifle or pistol, maybe, that's not the issue.

I never said the US had strict gun laws, and it doesn't claim to anyway (I live in Europe, btw). I'm just saying that for a country that does claim to have strict gun laws, they don't seem to work too well.

And those people on the island should have been protected by some kind of security, especially after the terrorist attack that was directed at the government-it's just naievete to think that after a direct attack on the government in the capital, that those people wouldn't be a target. If Norwegian cops don't carry guns, maybe they should start. Cops in most other European countries do.

 

That's quite the prediction, and based on... what, exactly? Reactions of the US in the wake of 911? The USA and Norway are vastly different countries.

Tell me more about the laggard economy of Norway, Skip. One of the few countries in the world that was virtually unaffected by the "financial crisis." Increased growth, decreased unemployment rates last year. A vast reserve of money.

Unlike the US, the populace of Norway holds their government accountable, and a great many pay attention to what politicians do, especially if they do stuff that pisses people off. One of the many benefits of having a smaller population.

I don't know what changes this event will bring, but I doubt it will bring the country closer to a police state. There is no paranoia as a result of this, only grief.

 

His attack was against people of a different political alignment than his, the ruling party. He disagrees with this party's immigration policies, and his goal was to stop recruitment for the party. (Or so he claims)

The laws work well enough, not many countries can boast such a low violent crime rate as Norway. But if a madman wants to kill lots of people, he can, regardless of regulations that are in place, unless you are talking about a society akin to 1984.

The attack on the government building was carried out an hour before the shooting started on the island. How could anyone have suspected that the next step would be attacking a bunch of kids on an island 45 minutes away?

As for armed cops, the rationale is that if the cops have guns, so will criminals. How is that working out for other European countries? Not all too well. Sweden, which is fairly similar to Norway, but has armed cops, has far, far more violent crime than Norway.

Who is to say what affects gun homicides. But one thing is for sure, giving more people guns is not likely to bring those rates down.

 

In other news, the official death toll has been reduced to 68 people on the island, and 8 from the bombing.

 

Thoreau once said "Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one". Sounds pretty similar. I suspect he was a right wing terrorist! Let's burn his books!

 

My bad - unemployment is not down this year, but has been on a downward trend over the last 20 years, although it's now up to a whopping 3.6%...
http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/fi...1/revised-national-budget-2011.html?id=643124

Spending is low, usually well within budget, and economic growth is predicted for the next few years.

In any event, it is a far cry from a laggard economy, and most analysts appear to agree that things are getting better and better. Certainly, they are far, far better off than the rest of the world.

Increased gun sales? Highly unlikely. If anything, I would expect their government to strengthen the gun control after something like this, not go the other direction. Course, that's just guesswork.

 

not only US but also military from my country and many other western christian countries are destroying those muslim countries.

 

Don't you think plain terrorism is sufficiently descriptive?
Much like the extremist muslims aren't representative of the whole muslim world, extremist christians aren't representative of all followers of that religion.

The last thing we need is to further inflame things between christian and muslim extremists. Now that it's glaringly obvious that both sides are equally capable of heinous acts, maybe we can try to stop pointing fingers and try finding common ground to bring the world to peace.