Wake Up and Smell the Carnage!!!

The price of being too "civilized":

Unarmed cops needed 'authorization' to retrieve guns...

Unsettling Wariness in Norway, Where Police Are Rarely ArmedBy MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
OSLO — When a man dressed in a police uniform began slaughtering young people at a Norwegian summer camp last week, one of the first to be killed was a real police officer named Trond Berntsen, who for years had worked in security at the camp.

Whether Officer Berntsen tried to stop the gunman is still being debated. But facing a man carrying multiple guns and ample ammunition, there was little he could do. Like most other police officers here, he had no weapon.

By law, Norwegian police officers must have authorization from their chief to gain access to a firearm, but they have rarely needed to ask, until recently. Violent crime has been steadily increasing, jolting a society used to leaving doors unlocked and children to play without fear. Coupled with growing criticism over the police’s slow response time to the attacks and confusion about the death toll, which was lowered Monday to 76 from 93, there are growing questions about whether the police are equipped to deal with the challenges.

“Criminals are now carrying weapons, so some people now think that police officers should have weapons as well,” said Gry Jorunn Holmen, a spokeswoman for the Norwegian police union. Though she said it was too early to make any assessments, Ms. Holmen said the union had formed a commission to explore the issue. For the police, she said, “it’s getting tougher.”

It took police SWAT units more than an hour to reach the camp, on Utoya Island, after reports of the shooting came in. Officers had to drive to the shore across from the site of the shooting attack, and use boats to get to the island. A police helicopter was unable to get off the ground; news crews that reached the island by air could only watch as the gunman continued the massacre.

Anne Holt, Norway’s former justice minister, told the BBC: “That makes him a person that killed one person every minute. If the police had actually been there just a half an hour earlier, then 30 young lives would have been saved.”

Officer Berntsen, 51, who was the stepbrother of Norway’s crown princess, was remembered in a service on Monday. It was among the first of dozens of memorial services and funerals expected in the coming days after the rampage. The man identified by the police as the suspect, Anders Behring Breivik, most likely shot more rounds in the hourlong rampage than most Norwegian officers typically fire in a career.

Norway is internationally renowned for its low rates of violent crime, a fact that is a point of pride for many Norwegians. Murders, when they do occur, are front-page news here. In 2009, the last date for which official statistics were available, there were 29 murders in this country of 4.6 million. In Oslo, the capital, high-ranking officials rarely even bother with a security detail.....

....Currently, only beat police officers in patrol cars have immediate access to weapons. By law, however, they have to remain unloaded and locked in a box in the car unless authorization is given.

Some experts worry that arming police officers all the time will only lead to an escalation of violence as criminals arm themselves in response. For many, though, resistance to the idea has more to do with national pride.

“I would prefer to live in a society where police normally work unarmed,” said Johannes Knutsson, a professor of police research at the Norwegian Police University College. “It is a very forceful and symbolic sign to the citizens that this is a peaceful society.”

Elisa Mala contributed reporting.


Slowly Learning:
Democrats Oppose Obama-U.N. Gun Control Treaty
By Paul Bedard

Posted: July 26, 2011

Twelve Democratic senators have joined 45 Republicans in a fast growing movement to halt progress on an Obama-backed United Nations effort that could bring international gun control into the United States and slap America's gun owners with severe restrictions.

Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester's office today provided Whispers with their letter, signed by 11 other Democrats, urging the president to press for significant changes in the treaty. Their major concern: that domestic manufacture, possession, and sales of firearms and ammo will be included, thereby giving an international authority the right to regulate arms sales already protected by the Second Amendment. They also said any move for an international gun registry would be a non-starter.

A Republican letter circulated by Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran has 45 signatures.

Ratification requires two-thirds of the Senate. So far 57 senators have said they would vote against the treaty, expected to be wrapped up next year.

In his letter, Moran wrote, "Our country's sovereignty and the Second Amendment rights of American citizens must not be infringed upon by the United Nations," Moran wrote in the letter. "Today, the Senate sends a powerful message to the Obama Administration: an Arms Trade Treaty that does not protect ownership of civilian firearms will fail in the Senate. Our firearm freedoms are not negotiable."

The emergence of strong Democratic resistance comes as the president is trying to deal with fallout from liberal Democrats upset that he has opened the door to major changes in Social Security and Medicare as part of the debt ceiling crisis.

The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, which the Bush administration had opposed, would regulate with the international trade of arms. It would cover the trading of conventional firearms likes those used by collectors and sportsmen and women.

The goal of the treaty is to come up with internationally recognized rules governing the trade of guns and ammo. The United States is the world's largest exporter of arms......