It’s tough being a gangster in Sweden. You’re in Europe, so gun control laws are strict. Then again, as most sentient non-MAIG members realize, criminals are rarely concerned with gun laws. But like anywhere else, being a gangster carries with it some inherent risks. You usually live and operate in dodgy areas and you’re probably selling drugs or engaging in other kinds of business that tend to result in violence breaking out more often than is experienced by, say, your average hamburger flipper or store clerk. So you can see why a gangster – any gangster – would want to pack some heat for protection. Increasingly, Swedish judges are understanding that, too…

As recently reported by Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan, judges seem to be making allowances for gang members in weapons cases and handing out light sentences. As reported by dailycaller.com,

Prosecutor Jan Pernvi told the Swedish newspaper The Local that in one 2009 case, a minimal sentence was handed down to a gang member who was arrested with a fully automatic pistol in his belt. The judge, he said, ruled that such a criminal ”can be especially vulnerable when living in a dangerous environment, and therefore have personal reasons to be armed.”

Pernvi was baffled. “So the court perceived it as mitigating circumstances that he was a professional criminal, even if it wasn’t written in the sentence,” he said.

Now, if you’re a regular Swedish Sven Q. Citizen taxpayer, you have to jump through plenty of hoops to get yourself a handgun.

Sweden’s gun control laws require citizens to be active participants in competition shooting for six months before they can apply for a license to own a handgun. Minor criminal convictions, including for public drunkenness can result in the cancellation of a license and the confiscation of the offender’s guns.

Then again, Sven Q. probably doesn’t reside in a tough neighborhood and doesn’t live in fear for his life as much as gang members do. So it’s OK to throw the book at him if he runs afoul of the law. But gangsters are getting sentences of just a few months when they’re caught carrying full-auto weapons. Because they need them.

Meanwhile, the crime rate seems to be increasing for some reason, And like night follows day, Sweden’s legislators are looking to further tighten gun control laws.

“We’ve never experienced anything like this before,” Malmö police spokesman Lars-Hakan Lindholm told the Associated Press. ”It’s exceptional that there have been so many murders in such a short period of time.”

Of course, that will only keep guns out of Sven’s hands, not gang members’. Sven’s pretty much screwed, left unarmed to duck behind the smörgåsbord if gunfire erupts. Maybe Sven should move to the ghetto so that, if he does carry illegally and is caught, he can hope to find a sympathetic judge and get out of the hoosegow a little sooner.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

32 COMMENTS

  1. It might also be noted that Malmo has one of the highest incidents of rape in Europe and large parts of Malmo are “no go” areas for the police; these areas have been taken over by immigrants with an unspecified religious persuasion.

    Just saying.

  2. Fortunately this is all quite far away from me and concerns me not in the least. I need to go caress my assault rifle now.

    • First they came for the communists,
      and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

      Then they came for the trade unionists,
      and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

      Then they came for the Jews,
      and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

      Then they came for me
      and there was no one left to speak out for me.

        • First they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

          Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

          Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

          Then they came for me, and my AR did the talking.

          Better?

          • I was thinking along the same lines. That old axiom really only applies to disarmed people who put faith in their leaders to do the right thing. Right up until they don’t.

  3. It appears Sweden is following Chicago’s approach to felon management.

    Without turning this post into a giant conspiracy rant,I believe this is an example of the government and the street criminal sharing a mutual interest.Both parties benefit from a disarmed law abiding population;the criminal has easy and painless acess to victims,and the government can pass or enact any legislation it sees fit without armed retaliation from the population.A scared voting block is much easier to manipulate into voting for incumbent parties as well,in the spirit of legislators promising to solve a crime problem they helped create.

    If Sweden keeps on with this pro-criminal policy one day the gangs will try to buy representation in lieu of political support as has happened in Chicago,and then the jig really will be up.

  4. So now we can switch our concerns from 18 -35 Yo muslim men to 18-35 YO blonde white swedes who used to make SAABs.

  5. Crime isn’t going up because of increased gun control (at least it isn’t the main driver). Crime is going up because of a massive increase in immigration and politicians look at gun control as the solution to stop the crime (it won’t. As many posts here have pointed out). I’m not pro gun control by any means but Sweden will continue having a crime problem even with looser gun control until they curb their immigration issues. No one over there will say this of course because they have the same Politically Correct problems we do.
    This link says it better than I do.
    http://voxday.blogspot.com/2012/01/life-mystery.html

  6. when i was last in that country i took a train from Stockholm in the north to malmo all the way south, wow what a difference.

    the gun laws there are strict like most Euro countries are, but here a private citizen can own between 7-11 weapons total i believe. after hoop jumping that is.

  7. Sweden – isn’t that the country that remained neutral in WWII, even though Hitler and the Germans invaded their neighbor (Norway)? Isn’t that the country full of people who have voted for increasingly socialist nanny-state governments over the last 50 years? Don’t they have a top tax rate of 95% or so?

    So Swedes are suffering form increasing violent crime, and have a number of Islamic areas that are no-go regions for the police and non-Muslims.

    Here’s a quarter: call someone who gives a sh*t (if you can find a pay phone).
    I believe the expression is “reaping what you have sown.”

    • You realize that Sweden’s murder rate is 1/5 of the United States’s, it is much safer in every way, and the standard of living is higher by nearly any measurable standard? Like their infant mortality rate (at 1/2 of ours). Or their education system? Or maybe a guarantee of 25 days of vacation, and ample maternity/paternity live? Instead of being lucky to get two weeks, and being even luckier to be allowed to take it without getting fired, especially all at once? And getting fired if you want to care for a newborn (but at least gays can’t marry and destroy families)?

      They quite enjoy their “socialism” (social welfare programs have nothing to do with socialism).

  9. That’s really funny about the judge considering the criminal’s line of work a good reason to be armed.

    But the rest of your post is the usual nonsense that only the good guys are affected by gun laws. The criminals in Sweden get their guns the same way the criminals in New York do, from the gun flow that starts out with YOU.

    So the “criminals don’t obey the laws” crap is getting really tired. You should drop it and focus on something that makes more sense.

    • “So the “criminals don’t obey the laws” crap is getting really tired. You should drop it and focus on something that makes more sense.”
      —–
      Huh? It’s a simple sentence. Five words, only two of which are not monosylabic. What part of it doesn’t make sense?

    • Hey, mikeb, I have never had a gun stolen from me and never lost one. How does the gun flow to criminals start with me? Or are you sterotyping all gun owners and then attempting to create a rule from your inaccurate generalization? And how is that different from sterotyping a minority group based on the behavior of a few members of that group? Sounds like bigotry.

      • Oh, I have beens aying for years the Cops give some of their criminal snitch buddies access to guns.

    • The criminals in Sweden get their cars the same way the criminals in New York do, from the car flow that starts out with YOU.

      This could be used as an argument for car control, since criminals steal cars and use them to commit crimes. And the reckless and negligent use of cars kills more people per year than guns do, by a wide margin. There isn’t even a Constitutional amendment protecting the right to own a car, so you might even get something like this to stand. So when will you be starting your blog to end civilian ownership of cars?

    • You know, I had a whole bunch of my full-auto pistols stolen from me last week and I was wondering where they might turn up.

      Oh wait. Silly me forgot that I live in America! We peasants don’t have those nice toys!

    • So the “criminals don’t obey the laws” crap is getting really tired.

      I’m very sorry if you’re getting bored, but the fact is this is a fundamental problem with trying to curb crime involving guns by legislative means. You can’t get around it by ignoring it.

      Gun laws only have a direct first-order effect on the law-abiding. If you ban guns, immediately no law-abiding person (by definition) has a gun. However, you’re relying on second-order effects to curb gun use by criminals – for instance hoping that the supply will dry up, there no longer being any guns to steal in the hands of the law-abiding. I say “hoping”, however, because there are of course other avenues of obtaining guns. They can be stolen from law enforcement or the military. They can be illegally imported. They can be illegally manufactured. So the best you can hope for is a delayed, much attenuated effect on the criminal class.

      One of the key ways to measure the effectiveness of any security measure is to compare the cost of compliance with the cost of defeating it. Good security measures are the ones that affect attackers far more than defenders. Gun control is the exact opposite.

  10. Brilliant idea #1 — Eliminate all legal guns from society. That way, there is no chance that guns can be used in crime.
    Brilliant idea #2 — Eliminate all dogs from society. That way there is no chance anyone will be attacked by a vicious dog.

    The same mathematical model is the basis of both proposals. The mathematical principal used in both is sound, yet both proposals are absurd.

Comments are closed.