Blast in Oslo

[Gawdzilla Sama]

That and in his manifesto there are log details as well as research on how he could inject bullets with liquid nicotine ordered from China. I don't recall it mentioning whether he succeeded in doing so, but he did have a shopping list and a method at the ready.

Take a hollow point, pour a liquid in and cap it, no big deal.

[Svartalf]

A question for our Norwegian posters. Breivik was caught with multiple weapons, large quantities of ammunition, and in particular, he used frangible bullets... just how easy are such items to get in Norway? Are they even available legally or is it by definition contraband? I'm particularly interested in the bullets since I don't really see such an item being allowed for civilians, even in gun liberal places like the US.

The bullets were dum-dums, he could have made them himself from standard rounds.

The news I got definitely said "fragmenting" (aka frangible), not dum dum, which is a term we know better than hollowpoint.

[Eriku]

A question for our Norwegian posters. Breivik was caught with multiple weapons, large quantities of ammunition, and in particular, he used frangible bullets... just how easy are such items to get in Norway? Are they even available legally or is it by definition contraband? I'm particularly interested in the bullets since I don't really see such an item being allowed for civilians, even in gun liberal places like the US.

The bullets were dum-dums, he could have made them himself from standard rounds.

The news I got definitely said "fragmenting" (aka frangible), not dum dum, which is a term we know better than hollowpoint.

I can confirm that a doctor at a hospital dealing with the injured confirmed on the news that there were people with severe damages due to dum dum bullets.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

A question for our Norwegian posters. Breivik was caught with multiple weapons, large quantities of ammunition, and in particular, he used frangible bullets... just how easy are such items to get in Norway? Are they even available legally or is it by definition contraband? I'm particularly interested in the bullets since I don't really see such an item being allowed for civilians, even in gun liberal places like the US.

The bullets were dum-dums, he could have made them himself from standard rounds.

The news I got definitely said "fragmenting" (aka frangible), not dum dum, which is a term we know better than hollowpoint.

A dum-dum mushrooms. If you cut an X in the end of a bullet it tends to split into quarters or worse.

[Seth]

A question for our Norwegian posters. Breivik was caught with multiple weapons, large quantities of ammunition, and in particular, he used frangible bullets... just how easy are such items to get in Norway? Are they even available legally or is it by definition contraband? I'm particularly interested in the bullets since I don't really see such an item being allowed for civilians, even in gun liberal places like the US.

"Dum-dums" are simply modified soft-nosed semi-jacketed rounds. However, hollow-point expanding ammunition is extremely common in the US and elsewhere. Only the military is restricted by the Geneva Convention from using expanding ammunition and is required by the laws of war to use solid full-metal jacket ammunition.

Hollow-point ammunition is different from "frangible" ammunition in that the hollow-point is designed to expand reliably in the target to provide both maximum transfer of energy and to prevent the round from passing through the target, where it might go on to hit unintended targets. Most US police departments use hollow-point ammunition for that reason. The thinking is that if you have legal cause to shoot someone, you need to incapacitate them and render them harmless as quickly as possible, and expanding ammunition does that job quite nicely while protecting bystanders from overpenetration.

Hollow point ammunition is also widely used in hunting for the same reasons.

Frangible ammunition is something different. It's designed to turn to powder upon striking any hard object so that it will not penetrate walls, or particularly aircraft fuselages, while still providing adequate stopping power to incapacitate an assailant. They are made of sintered bronze powder. What this means is that bronze powder is rammed into a mould for the bullet at tremendous pressure, with heat, in a proprietary process, which provides a solid round that will turn back to bronze dust on impacting hard objects like metal, brick or concrete. Frangible ammo is very expensive and is usually reserved for people like Air Marshals, so they can fire them in an aircraft cabin without danger of harming critical flight systems.

[Ronja]

According to this morning's HBL (paper version) the perp's manifesto includes more or less all of Unabomber's text - Breivik only changed some key concepts so the text would fit his own ideology better. That news is not on the web yet.

These are, though: he had planned to get to the island while the prime minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland was still there, but he missed her by a couple of hours (link goes to a page in Swedish) http://hbl.fi/nyheter/2011-07-25/mordar ... brundtland

The British MI5 are searching for a group of "Knight Templars" two of whom supposedly hosted a training/recruiting meeting for extreme right terrorists in April 2002. Breivik claims to have attended. (another Swedish link) http://hbl.fi/nyheter/2011-07-25/scotla ... pelriddare

[Svartalf]

snip.

Thanks, it looks like I knew less than I thought, and that our news casters use terminology even more stupidly than I ever feared.

[Kim salabim]

Today my ex and I went to pick up our son from (ironically enough) Norwegian Heritage Camp. The kids always put on a little show of the Norwegian songs and folk dances they've learned. Today as part of the program there was a moment of silence for those killed in the tragedy, after the singing of the US and Norwegian national anthems, and I started crying. Being there, at a youth camp, after this had just happened, brought it home all the more.

I got tears in my eyes reading this.

Thank you for sharing.

[Ronja]

Some good news from Norway - if any news regarding Breivik can really be called good

The maximum prison sentence in Norway is 21 years, but convicts who pose a danger to society can be held after their sentence is up - a virtual life sentence.

A bit more here: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/ ... 2983.shtml

[JimC]

Some good news from Norway - if any news regarding Breivik can really be called good

The maximum prison sentence in Norway is 21 years, but convicts who pose a danger to society can be held after their sentence is up - a virtual life sentence.

A bit more here: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/ ... 2983.shtml

Yes, we heard that too...

Mind you, life does not necessarily mean long life...

There will probably be some hardened criminals in his jail; the real hard men. Accidents can happen...

[Rum]

Personally I would rather he changed his mind about his crazy 'ideology' went public and got out after 21 years, rather than sat there rotting in his own filthy mind for life.

Won't happen I know..

[normal]

I wonder what the mood would be like on FB had it been muslim extremists. Now it's all lovey-dovey and yay, democracy-ish. Somehow I think that would not be the case if it were a for'ner who dunnit

[Coito ergo sum]

I wonder what the mood would be like on FB had it been muslim extremists. Now it's all lovey-dovey and yay, democracy-ish. Somehow I think that would not be the case if it were a for'ner who dunnit

And doesn't that make perfect sense? If it was a foreign country or organization, then there would be something outside of the country that was attacking -- a response to that attack would be pretty obvious - go kill the folks that did it, or apprehend them, whatever. When it is a Norwegian, born and raised in Norway, then obviously Norway can't go to war with itself - the response must be to the domestic threat. In this case, while there have been reports either way, there is some indication that he had cohorts. The likelihood is, though, that a Norwegian group is not as powerful as, say, Al Qaeda, or Hizb'Allah, or Islamic Jihad, or other groups who have states backing them. A Norwegian group likely does not have the backing of state, so, there are differences.

[Eriku]

I disagree, normal. The most significant event in Norway outside of war time, with youths from all over the country and the local communities to which they belong affected.

And if we may speculate in a foreigner doing the same, I assume we retain the other elements, like his manifesto and the method of going about his business, which was as chilling as anything some spectacularly sinister script writer might come up with.

It's a national tragedy, irrespective of where the perpetrator came from. And it's definitely terror, to which we have replied that we will keep exerting our own values, the ones which the source of the terrorism obviously so fundamentally disagrees with.

[Seth]

I disagree, normal. The most significant event in Norway outside of war time, with youths from all over the country and the local communities to which they belong affected.

And if we may speculate in a foreigner doing the same, I assume we retain the other elements, like his manifesto and the method of going about his business, which was as chilling as anything some spectacularly sinister script writer might come up with.

It's a national tragedy, irrespective of where the perpetrator came from. And it's definitely terror, to which we have replied that we will keep exerting our own values, the ones which the source of the terrorism obviously so fundamentally disagrees with.

It's all the more terrifying because there is no outside ethnic or political group that Norwegians can point at and say "be afraid of those people." Now they have to worry about their own, and be suspicious of every neighbor they don't know intimately.

The sad fact is that when the political situation in any nation reaches the point where ideologies are so polarized that people are willing to use violence to forward their agenda, be it McVeigh, or this guy, or SEIU or neo-nazis, it's time for both sides to step back and move to the center and away from the political extremes.

Unfortunately this rarely happens, and such events merely polarize people more, making violence in defense of extreme ideologies all the more likely.