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)