Snowflakes in Hell

Funny.

Via Squeaky

Via John Lott, apparently the Finns were under quite a bit of international pressure to change it’s “lax” gun laws:

International gun control activists have urged the Finns to rethink their laws in the wake of Wednesday’s tragedy.

Finns are sensitive to their international image, and often complain their country is portrayed as a gloomy northern outpost of Europe, where long dark winters drive people to binge drinking, suicide or random outbursts of violence.

Sensitive, but they are agreeing to make this change in their law:

The government said Friday it would raise the minimum age for buying guns from 15 to 18, but insisted there was no need for sweeping changes to gun laws shaped by deep-rooted traditions of hunting in the sub-Arctic wilderness.

Good for them for pissing on Rebecca Peters and her group’s demands.  But consider that Finland’s gun laws are still stricter than ours:

“The application was rejected because a 9 mm gun is considered too powerful … for target practice shooting,” Detective Superintendent Tero Haapala told The Associated Press. “He was recommended to get a .22-caliber gun.”

After Wednesday’s shooting drew international attention to Finland’s gun culture, the Interior Ministry issued a statement saying firearm sales were “strictly controlled.”

Before granting a weapons permit, police “assess the applicant’s suitability to posses a firearm, his or her way of life, behavior and possible mental health problems,” the statement said. Applicants must prove also they have a legitimate need for a gun, such as hunting or target practice. Self-defense is not a valid reason.

Sounds pretty strict to me, and yet:

Gun control activists said the shooting at the Jokela High School in Tuusula, some 30 miles north of Helsinki, proved the need for stricter gun laws in Finland.

“Compared to other European countries, Finland has a serious gun problem,” said Rebecca Peters, director of the London-based International Action Network on Small Arms.

Not enough.  We must not give an inch to these people.  They won’t stop until they all go under the saw.  If Paul Helmks wants to find ways to work with the NRA, since his organization isn’t about banning guns and all, why doesn’t he start by denouncing this international gun ban movement led by Rebecca Peters?

Armed and Safe is quite correct to point out that my Governor is a gun banning turd, but I did want to highlight something else he mentioned:

Alright, I have a big problem with this, even before we get to the “fight for three ‘gun-control’ laws” part. Whenever I see calls for “tougher penalties for shooting at a police officers [sic],” I get the impression that we are expected to believe that the lives of police officers are implicitly more valuable than the lives of us “Average Joes.” That’s a concept I utterly reject.

As long as proper protections are in place for self-defense, and the law requires knowledge that the person the actor reasonably knew, or should have known, the person he was shooting at was a police officer, acting in his official capacity, I have no problem with a law like this. But it’s not because I believe police should be considered by law to be a special class of “super citizen”.

The legal theory behind why shooting at, or murdering a police officer is a more serious offense is because it’s more than just an attack against another person, but an attack against civilized order. Riotous behavior is really, in theory, no more than a property crime in most cases. These days you really never see the authorities using deadly force on rioters, but in most states, it’s perfectly lawful to use deadly force on people engaged in riotous behavior. Under Pennsylvania Law:

The use of deadly force is not in any event justifiable under this subsection unless the actor believes that the use of such [deadly] force is necessary to suppress a riot or mutiny after the rioters or mutineers have been ordered to disperse and warned, in any particular manner that the law may require, that such [deadly] force will be used if they do not obey.

The reason for this is similar to the reason for making the penalty stiffer for shooting at a police officer.  Although rioting is typically a property crime, it is more properly a crime against order.  Civilization is but a thin veneer, and it doesn’t take much scratching to reveal the ugliness underneath, and our laws have tended to reflect that.  It is for that reason that we ought to treat assault against a law enforcement officer more seriously than we do other types of assault, not because they are a protected or privileged class of citizen.