Agree. The system has half the blame in this case. The Norwegian police did not have a bloody helycopter to get to th shooting scene, while two news chopprs were filming the savage shooting people. It took them over an hour and half to get to him only 40km from the capital.
This is unacceptable. Half those kids could have been saved in most other countries that take the security of their citizens seriously. First, they made sure there are as few weaponns in the civilians hands as possible, telling them the police will protect them. Then they took the guns from the police and did everything they could (with budget cuts and monumental bureocratic bs rules), to make sure those units that still had guns were almost incapable to react effectively.
This case is to be used by law enforcement agencies across the globe as example of "strategy of certain defeat".
The same people that created this impotent system are going to make sure this monster is cared for for the rest of his life.

That kind of stuff can make you so angry you could kill.........

Agreed on all accounts. I hope they learn from their mistakes, and stop living in some imaginary land where those things dont happen. They are responsible for protecting the lives of those people after all.
And the max sentence of 21 years is to me like laughing at the families of victims...

It is certainly tragic that the police weren't prepared, but on the other hand, you have to remember that Norway is the sort of land where these things don't happen. Breivik committed twice as many murders in a day that normally occur in a year in Norway. I can't see any justifiable reason, prior to the shooting, for maintaining a sort of SWAT team or something of the like, in the eventuality that something like that might happen on an off chance. Of course, it's all well and good to look back in hindsight and say they should have been prepared, but in reality there was no reason for them to suspect anything like this would happen.

The same is also with the 21 years thing, there just aren't generally multiple homicides in Norway, so they haven't had to change the law to allow for it. Since you can't apply the law retrospectively it can't be changed to apply to Breivik, but I'm sure they'll have the sense to change it now. But again, this event really isn't something that was forseen and it's unreasonable to have expected anyone to see it coming.

There's no excuse to drop the ball the way they did. This is all related to the political system runing the show. In the town of 200.000+ people I live in, there were no homicides for over two years. The police officers still ride with the c8 cqb carbine in the cruiser, because you never know.

God works in mysterious ways doesnt he....he just sat around and watched.

I seem to remember that nobody foresaw the school-shootings in Columbine or Virginia Tech either, despite having a ready access to guns set down in the constitution. Having police that are armed on a daily basis is in absolutely NO way, shape or form a surefire way to stop a lone person with a plan and the will to carry it out.

The political system here in Norway is NOT to blame for one man's insane rampage, and there was quite frankly nothing that could have been done to prevent this. Our police isn't armed on a day to day basis by choice as much as per orders, and the only two units of the police that are armed and train with firearms damn near on a daily basis are Delta (Antiterror-squad) and the Rapid Response Team. Who, I might add, were both present in downtown Oslo not all that long after the bomb there went off.

If you can blame july 22nd on the political system here, then I can blame each and every gun-related homicide in the US on the political system there. Or any other place in the world, for that matter.

I don't expect you to understand, however. You don't know us, and you don't know how we think.

Re Breivik's sentence: He will most definitely receive the maximum amount permissible by law here, which is 21 years of prison. But he is also damn near guaranteed to receive a sentence of incarceration, which is, under our laws, something that can be used until he is no longer a threat to himself or the society in general. Incarceration is mostly used in cases where there is a severe and real ground to believe that a person will commit similar acts again, and Breivik has stated multiple times that he would if he could.

I'd be surprised if Breivik ever is a free man again, and IF he is, I severely doubt he'd live long out on his own. While we Norwegians aren't vengeful by nature as a people, exceptions have been known to happen. And while not vengeful by nature, we do have long memories.

S!

I think that what is common in Scandinavia is the police not having visible guns everywhere. To some a gun can be a provocation and police is taught not to use it as first measure of law enforcing. And in most cases this is enough and works. But as in any communities there are exceptions and then the special trained police units are called in, even MP can support.

This Breivik..A gruesome example of what a twisted human mind can plan and execute. Blaming computer games or whatever is just an excuse to put the blame on everything else but the shortcomings of our societies. There will always be someone that would do things like this even in the so called perfect community.

Tough times in Norway now, especially for the relatives and survivors. I wish they will have the strength to overcome this ordeal and the lunatic kept away for life.

Ecclesiastes 10:13

The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness: and the end of his talk is wicked madness.


.

Has anyone ever noticed just how similar a battery hen farm and society are?