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Iceland Is A Gun-Loving Country With No Shooting Murders Since 2007. Only One Police shooting, EVER.

DarthWalden

DarthWalden

Prophet of Truth
The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
6,030
They have sensible gun laws. This is not limited to Iceland.

Many countries (including Canada, and Australia) have similar gun laws.

I can walk into a toy store in the USA right now and buy a semi-automatic gun. Its about as difficult as buying a pack of cigarettes.

If I want to purchase anything like that in Canada, I need to get a license which involves a criminal record check, a mental health check and taking a firearm safety course.

This weeds out a huge majority of irresponsible folks getting there hands on guns and allows for enthusiasts of the hobby to own them.

Unfortunately most Americans see this as a black and white issue. Its guns or no guns and those flames are being stoked by the NRA who for obvious reasons wants no restriction on guns purchasing. But people fail to realize you can legally buy a gun in practically all of these countries with "gun laws".
 
S_Dev

S_Dev

Member
Oct 26, 2017
112
Of course they use St Louis as the measuring stick in this article. Hey guys, not only are we the Murder Capital of the US, we're also Number 1 when it comes to contaminated sites and toxic chemicals! So don't blame me for keeping that thang on me, and by thang I mean my gas mask.
 

Imperfected

Member
Nov 9, 2017
11,737
So in other words, they make owning a gun about as regulated as owning and driving a car is in America.

Sorry, Iceland, but we obviously can't tolerate such a massive infringement on our rights to something as vital to our day-to-day lives as guns. Clearly.
 
AYZON

AYZON

Member
Oct 29, 2017
905
Germany
Not surprising, probably better overall social security, better regulations and less irrational fears. (evil government, everyone wants to kill you and so on)
 
Buckle

Buckle

Member
Oct 27, 2017
41,132
Is Iceland a cultural melting pot?

Diversity really gets us clutching our murder boners over here.
 
shaneo632

shaneo632

Weekend Planner
Member
Oct 29, 2017
29,017
Wrexham, Wales
American frontier mentality is a fucked up carryover. "This is my castle and I must defend it from the 'other'"

Only ever seen a gun once in my life in the UK, glad for it.
 
Kyougar

Kyougar

Cute Animal Whisperer
Member
Nov 3, 2017
9,360
Imperfected said:
So in other words, they make owning a gun about as regulated as owning and driving a car is in America.

Sorry, Iceland, but we obviously can't tolerate such a massive infringement on our rights to something as vital to our day-to-day lives as guns. Clearly.
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Isn't an American driver license stupidly easy to get? From the novels I read, it is just some driving hours and a written test.

In Germany, you have to go to class for dozens of hours, ace the test, and then drive another couple of dozen hours with a certified drive-coach. In the end, you must ace the driving test while your coach and a certified state-employed tester are in the car with you. Even just doing a wrong U-turn will get you slammed hard and you will fail the test, flushing 1000€+ down the toilet.
They can even legally give wrong advise to you! YOU have to know the laws. So when your tester says "Make a U-turn here", the only correct answer would be "That would be an illegal maneuver".

All in All, getting your license takes several months and costs minimum 1500€ if you ace your tests.
 

Imperfected

Member
Nov 9, 2017
11,737
Kyougar said:
Isn't an American driver license stupidly easy to get? From the novels I read, it is just some driving hours and a written test.
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It's hard enough that we have Driving Schools and most high schools have Driver's Education as an optional class. And of course, vehicle registration is pretty serious business. It's also fairly easy to have your license removed or suspended in many states, and no one gets in a tiff when we deny a license on the basis of physically or mentally disabling conditions.

So, not that difficult, but about a hundred times more challenging than gun ownership in America.
 
Cryptosporidium

Cryptosporidium

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,624
canada
Canada also has a lot of guns, but theres regulations as well as a society wide "who cares" about guns.

The only ones who care about guns here are redneck wannabes
 
BlackGoku03

BlackGoku03

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,275
GMM said:
Well, it's a different society with many differences compared to the US.

Strict laws regarding gun ownership is a big part of it, people learn to treat the weapons with care and store them safely, but that's just the top of the iceberg.

Poverty is much less frequent and those struggling financially have options to help them get back on track or get the means to live a decent life. Things like health care ensures that families aren't bankrupt from one moment to another, social security is a vital part of catching people before they turn desperate.

Racial tension is much less common as well, racism exists, but not to a degree which is seen in the US where people of color are statistically more likely to be treated differently because of the color of their skin.

An interesting thing is also to look at how religious the population of Iceland is, I believe they are consistently deemed the least religious country in the world as opposed to parts of the US that are very religious.

But I think one of the biggest factors is that lobbying organizations such as the NRA can not operate like they do in the US, monetary contributions or other high value gifts to politicians aren't allowed in order to sway their opinion to the organizations will. It means that the country like many others in Europe can actually implement and enforce strict gun legislation instead of making them worse or doing nothing.

The US has a ton of different issues that influence things like crime rates and lax gun legislation makes those problems that much more deadly. Some people say that the US can't change, but the sad fact is that to the rest of the world it doesn't seem like any real attempts are being made to change things despite it being the only country in the world with these problems.
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This exactly. You hit it on the head with the history of racism as well. Good post and answer for those who are wondering what's different.

It's not just the guns laws that are different. It's the culture and we as a nation just haven't done anything to stop it.
 
SapientWolf

SapientWolf

Member
Nov 6, 2017
6,565
IggyChooChoo said:
I think they're one of two national crises involving guns. Public massacres shouldn't be downplayed, because they attack the fabric of public life in a different way than, say, gun suicides and drug murders do.
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There's so much focus on the mass shootings that the overwhelming majority of gun violence in America is essentially being ignored.
 

Deleted member 11413

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
22,961
Kyougar said:
Isn't an American driver license stupidly easy to get? From the novels I read, it is just some driving hours and a written test.

In Germany, you have to go to class for dozens of hours, ace the test, and then drive another couple of dozen hours with a certified drive-coach. In the end, you must ace the driving test while your coach and a certified state-employed tester are in the car with you. Even just doing a wrong U-turn will get you slammed hard and you will fail the test, flushing 1000€+ down the toilet.
They can even legally give wrong advise to you! YOU have to know the laws. So when your tester says "Make a U-turn here", the only correct answer would be "That would be an illegal maneuver".

All in All, getting your license takes several months and costs minimum 1500€ if you ace your tests.
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Like most things in America, it depends on the state. Some states are strict, others are really lax.
 
Shodan14

Shodan14

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
9,410
kswiston said:
No murders in a decade is really impressive. But Iceland only has 350k people, and the population is super homogenized. So not exactly a recipe for police shootings (which are still biased towards visual minorities in other countries that don't have as extreme a problem as the US does).
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No firearm murders.
 
Calamari41

Calamari41

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,099
My town and the next few to the south in Southern California are about the same population combined as Iceland, and also had 0 murders, firearm-related or otherwise. We're very heavily armed, as well.


shaneo632 said:
American frontier mentality is a fucked up carryover. "This is my castle and I must defend it from the 'other'"

Only ever seen a gun once in my life in the UK, glad for it.
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Do you have statistics to back up this idea that American gun crime is being committed by people LARPing as frontiersmen and cowboys? Most American gun crime takes place in cities, and isn't committed in acts of self defense. The areas of the country that embody the "frontier mentality" have almost no gun crime.
 
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HaNotsri

Usage of alt-account.
Banned
Oct 28, 2017
790
Wouldn't you be able to find the same stats from a small city in america?
Isn't Icelands' population 300 k or something?
 
Coinspinner

Coinspinner

Member
Nov 6, 2017
2,154
I question how much they really love guns if they aren't shooting each other as much as we do.

The article itself says that Iceland doesn't even come close to the US in terms of gun ownership.
 
ABK281

ABK281

Member
Apr 5, 2018
3,004
IggyChooChoo said:
Call me names all you want, but I am tired of conservatives minimizing massacres simply because they claim numerically fewer victims. The fact that every movie theater, school, or music concert in America is a potential massacre waiting to happen is not a secondary problem. Semiautomatic ownership is causing a national crisis, too. They degrade our quality of life everywhere.
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Well you're not arguing with logic so I'll just disregard everything you said. We can ban AR's which I think we should do but it wouldn't solve the major problem with gun violence in this country. The lack of them in Iceland has nothing to do with the near complete lack of death by firearm in that country. That's absolutely insane to imply such a thing. These mass shooting can still occur without an AR, it just makes them a lot more dangerous with a higher potential body count. Getting rid of just them really won't lower firearm based murder rates in this country. That's just a fact.

I'm on your side, but making blatantly false claims just gives the other side ammunition to call you out on your ignorance. Be better.
 
IggyChooChoo

IggyChooChoo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,230
ABK281 said:
Well you're not arguing with logic so I'll just disregard everything you said. We can ban AR's which I think we should do but it wouldn't solve the major problem with gun violence in this country. The lack of them in Iceland has nothing to do with the near complete lack of death by firearm in that country. That's absolutely insane to imply such a thing. These mass shooting can still occur without an AR, it just makes them a lot more dangerous with a higher potential body count. Getting rid of just them really won't lower firearm based murder rates in this country. That's just a fact.

I'm on your side, but making blatantly false claims just gives the other side ammunition to call you out on your ignorance. Be better.
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Lay off the sanctimony and the "blatantly false" nonsense. This continuous cycle of massacres is as serious an attack on our public life as "standard" gun violence is. Their impact on overall murder rates is only one way they make America a worse place. That's why terrorists terrorize —not because of overall numbers but because of how they affect the minds of people not directly killed. This is all one fight and stopping massacres is just as important an aspect of the overall problem.
 
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