Gun laws didn't help

It is customary, after every violent tragedy, to observe that lessons must be learned from it. But the reality of the Norwegian massacre is that there are rather few to be learned.

Anders Breivik was patently an obsessive extremist but his background was both prosperous and liberal; he would not have been first on anyone's checklist of a potential mass homicide. He did not announce his intentions in advance on the Internet. His views on what he saw as the Islamisation of Norway were extreme but there may be hundreds of people with identical views who would not dream of turning to mass murder.

The only obvious moral is that Norway's relatively strict gun laws should be better enforced. Norwegians need a license to own a gun and must keep them in a safe; individuals may not buy automatic weapons. Police may inspect a gun-owner's home. Yet plainly, those laws were poorly enforced. The normal reflex, to call for still stricter laws, is less valid here than to take existing law seriously.

What would be a mistake would be to close down a debate on immigration in Norway where the immigrant population amounts to some 12 percent of the total. To put an end to serious debate on this issue would be itself a kind of totalitarianism. A free society will always be vulnerable to the actions of extremists; unfortunately, there will always be those who abuse that freedom.

- London Evening Standard