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12-year-old student opened fire at a secondary school in southern Finland on Tuesday morning, killing one and seriously wounding two other students, police said
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- Title
- 3 children wounded in a school shooting in Helsinki, police detain a suspect
- Published
- Apr 2 2024
- Word count
- 78 words
Also jarring was the fact that a solitary shooting in a school was so notable for Finland that it has obviously shaken the country. The article mentions that previous school shootings were over 16 years ago and that Finland has more than 1.5 million licensed firearms for its 5.6 million residents - so its not like people dont have access to firearms. Whatever they're doing in Finland to keep school shooting to such rare events needs to be shared and emulated.
Zooming out though, part of that is a numbers game.
If we assume such shootings scale directly with population and happen once every sixteen years at Finland’s 5.6M pop mark, you’re slated for over three shootings per year once you scale that rate up to the US population size.
According to this article by the CNN, by March 6, 2024 the US had already had 16 school shootings. Last year, there were a total of 82, and the year before that, 79. Granted, the size difference makes the two difficult to compare, but in any case, the difference is almost mind-blowing.
Meanwhile, Japan is roughly 1/2 the population of the US and has virtually no shootings. It was a national shock when someone assassinated the former prime minister with a makeshift weapon made from fireworks, batteries and a pipe.
They have very sensible gun laws. i.e. limited rifles for hunting and target shooting, with mandatory licensing and home inspections, and you'd be going to prison for a decade if you were caught with a handgun or semiautomatic weapon.
Yeah sorry - I straight up failed to drop my thesis there: I think more control is generally better in terms of reducing deaths, and Finland may not even go far enough.
Japan is a great example of effective policy in my book, though I’d definitely settle for something closer to Finland in a US context.
E: I’m probably overstating my affinity for Japan’s policies in hindsight. I’m a pro-gun, Gadsden-flag-waving Texan… but I don’t think anything other than bolt-action rifles for hunting or pump-action shotguns with smaller shot should be available to the public without majorly restrictive licensing or a specific purpose, such as protection from wildlife in remote areas. That’s not a palatable political policy in the US, but it’s where I put the ideal theoretical balance in terms of the cost/benefit tradeoff guns present. Semi-auto handguns are almost pure negatives in my book.
Hunting is really becoming a niche sport, sadly. My personal take on the second amendment is that we should allow people to have as many firearms as they want, provided they are functionally identical to what was commonly available in 1791, like single shot flintlocks. I'm somewhat jesting, but only somewhat.
Unfortunately you can't legislate culture. I absolutely believe stricter gun control would reduce gun violence in a country like the US. But as long as the culture of self defense by lethal force persists, you'd still see a lot more gun violence. The Nordic countries have a common understanding shared by almost all citizens that guns are not for shooting people, no matter the circumstances, with the exception of legal authorities like police or the military, and even then only in exceptional circumstances. Legitimate purposes for gun ownership include hunting, sports shooting, weapons collecting, and protection against dangerous wildlife, but not protection against dangerous people.
This only works with a high degree of trust both in your fellow man and the authorities. As long as the presence of a firearm is associated with safety, firearms will not be safe. You might find it jarring that a single school shooting would shake up an entire country, but I'm sure the Finns find it equally jarring that in many parts of the US, a person openly carrying a firearm in public, out of uniform, is not cause for public alarm.
This was rather shocking to read as I'm currently in Helsinki and hadn't heard anything until I saw the headline now.
It was a priority alert from all the major news outlet apps as soon as it happened.