Today the police held a press conference about the search for the person, or perhaps persons, who shots at immigrants in Malmö. As Stockholm News has reported, there have been several shootings against people with immigrant background in Malmö during the last year. But it was not until recently that the shootings were publically linked together and the pattern that all victims had immigrant background was analyzed. (This does of course not mean that the police had... (GunPolicy.org)

Police in Skåne in southern Sweden want to see tougher penalties for gun crimes in hopes of cutting down on the number of shootings in the region. "It's unacceptable that people who are found with loaded weapons are released again after only one or two days," Per Lidehäll of the Skåne County police told the Skånska Dagbladet newspaper. In 2010 alone, there have been more than 50 reported shootings in Malmö. The town remains on edge following an announcement by... (GunPolicy.org)

Finland's government is introducing tougher regulations on handguns following a mass shooting at a school on Tuesday September 23rd, the second in under a year. The country had been among the most lenient in the world, allowing 15-year-olds to keep a handgun under parental supervision, requiring no medical or psychological tests and no minimum wait for those buying weapons. The gun-death rate (whether murder, accident or suicide) in rich countries is highest where... (GunPolicy.org)

Zagreb police cracked down on a ring of arms producers and smugglers, and charged nine persons with having specialised in producing arms and explosives and smuggling them to western Europe, notably Sweden, the head of the Zagreb police, Marijan Tomurad, said at a news conference on Saturday. He stressed that the arms and bombs had been intended for clashed among underworld crime gangs and that the arms smugglers had no connections with any terrorist group. The... (GunPolicy.org)

Four people have been indicted in Malmö on gun-running charges following the seizure last autumn of a major consignment of weapons. Customs officials in Malmö found 40 semi-automatic weapons concealed in the seats of a car on October 10th last year. The driver of the vehicle was pulled over after customs officials noticed him behaving in a nervous manner when crossing the border from Denmark to Sweden. One of the driver's two passengers was also arrested. A woman... (GunPolicy.org)

Firearms are used in murders, attempted murders or robberies three times a day in Sweden, according to statistics from the National Police Board. In 2004, police registered 1,187 such crimes involving guns, a similar figure to the previous two years, reported Göteborgs-Posten. But the difference is that the kind of weapon has changed. "Before, there were a lot of shotguns — now it's all automatic weapons," said Per-Olof Johansson, a detective in the Gothenburg... (GunPolicy.org)

A man has been jailed for two years for shooting a trespasser on his property. Monday's DN reported that a couple in Omberg in Östergötland had an unexpected visit from two thieves just before Christmas last year. One 20-year old and one 59-year old man from Motala had decided to break in to the house owned by the couple, who are in their sixties. When the man heard them he fetched a shotgun and then shot the 20-year old man. He was seriously injured and taken to... (GunPolicy.org)

VAESTERAAS, Sweden — A Swedish court sentenced a former hijacking suspect Friday to four months in prison for weapons violations, saying he hadn't intentionally brought a gun to an airport in August. The district court in Vaesteraas said Kerim Chatty's explanation that he had forgotten the gun in his carryon luggage couldn't be dismissed. The 29-year-old was arrested Aug. 29 at the airport in Vaesteraas, about 60 miles west of Stockholm, after security officials... (GunPolicy.org)

STOCKHOLM — The man who tried to board a flight to Britain from Sweden with a loaded gun in his hand luggage was formally charged on Friday with illegal firearms possession, according to authorities. "The crime is serious since it concerns a dangerous weapon, which could not be used in a legal way and since it was possessed in circumstances making it possible to assume that it was going to be used in criminal activities," Swedish Chief Prosecutor Thomas Haggstrom... (GunPolicy.org)

STOCKHOLM — Scandinavian airline pilots including those working for Nordic carrier SAS are opposed to carrying guns in the cockpit as an anti-terrorism measure, their representatives said on Friday. The statement by the Swedish and Danish pilots' associations was a reaction to the US Senate's overwhelming vote on Thursday giving airline pilots the right to carry firearms to do battle with would-be hijackers. "That may be America's chosen solution to security... (GunPolicy.org)

The spread of small firearms is a threat to security both in conflict hotspots and peaceful democracies. President George W. Bush has once again ignored the United States' responsibility for peace-oriented international cooperation. In Gothenburg criminal gangs fire shots in public places. We do not need to think ourselves away to distant Angola, Colombia, or Sri Lanka to realize that the current UN conference on the spread of so-called small arms deserves to be taken... (GunPolicy.org)