I have an American friend in the USA who are trying to learn Norwegian. That is why she reads Norwegian newspapers online. Before she started this obviously unhealthy activity, she thought Oslo was a peaceful idyll, devoid of violent crime and the gun madness she experiences in her home country, but now she is increasingly worried about all the shootings she reads about.
No, take it easy, they only shoot each other, I assured her a few days before she was due to visit. Famous last words, as it is called. That same evening, the neighbor and our mutual friend, Eirik, ended up in the middle of the firing line on Tøyen torg. He was supposed to accompany his 80-year-old mother to the subway early on a Saturday evening. In the square, several people hung around the pubs, but that didn’t stop a young man from taking out a gun and firing without regard for the people around him. He almost succeeded in killing a man who was his target, but it could easily have gone an awful lot worse. Fortunately, the 80-year-old was fit enough to run for his life.
After that I got a different relationship to headlines about “shots on open street”. There are more and more of them. The dramatic shooting incident in central Oslo, of which Dagbladet has published a video this weekend, took place a stone’s throw from the National Theater in one of the city’s busiest streets. It is careless and out of control at the same time, which is why it makes headlines and gets more attention than if it is shot in the drab towns on the eastern edge on a Tuesday night. As it keeps happening without getting anything other than a notice.
Shot on open street
Until a few years ago I kept my word. Criminals were more shady and accurate, and they did the work themselves. The last thing they wanted was to run around the center of Oslo with a gun in their inner pocket and put civilians in danger. It’s smart from a business perspective. As soon as shots are fired at Aker Brygge in broad daylight, all hell breaks loose. The flood light is turned on. The press digs into gangs and networks, politicians talk about “Swedish conditions” and fuss about more resources for the police. The entire social contract is about ordinary citizens being able to move safely around the city without risking ending up in a shootout in the open street.
This is quite basic. Not that I think criminals are geniuses, but they’re not stupid either. They are concerned with their framework conditions like all other businesses in society. That is why the development is frightening. It testifies that criminals have little respect for the police, or fear the consequences of serious offences. It might not be so strange. Carrying a half-loaded weapon in a public place can be punished with up to three years in prison, but it rarely has such serious consequences in practice. Presumably one should be more afraid of having drugs on one’s person.
I know cocaine isn’t healthy, but not as deadly as being shot at.
City councilor on the shooting: – Terrible to watch
The basics for politicians are easy. Make sure your constituents don’t get shot in the open. It is unfortunate for the turnout in so many ways. First and foremost because shooting at people creates fear and horror, and then because people ask why it happens. How is it that minors are flying around with firearms? Are they trained to shoot in crowds? Are they accurate enough when you meet them on the subway?
Of course they are not. That’s why we settled for ice-cold 38-year-olds shooting a competitor in a deserted road no one had heard of. It was a world that hardly concerned us. But if they are going to start shooting around in the middle of Tøyen Torg on a Saturday night, then that is different. Then violence and crime threaten the everyday lives of ordinary people.
The police are the heroes in this work. When they see a brother caught in the web, they look after the little brother. They see where the dangers are, what causes someone to end up with a gun on a Saturday night at Tøyen. But they can’t do everything. There are so many things that happen before that gun ends up in a young boy’s pocket.
There are no Swedish conditions yet. Nor American. But the Norwegian situation is dangerous enough.
