Kauhajoki panel recommends total ban on semiautomatic handguns

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A board of inquiry appointed to look into the school shootings at Kauhajoki in the autumn of 2008 is recommending tougher criteria for firearm licences as well as a total ban on certain types of handguns. In addition, the panel calls for mandatory health inspections for students.
      The board submitted its report to Minister of Justice Tuija Brax (Green) on Wednesday morning.
      With one dissenting opinion, the panel recommended that semiautomatic handguns, with the capacity of firing many shots in a short period of time, should be taken away from their owners in return for monetary compensation, and that no new permits should be granted for firearms of that type.
     
The proposed ban would apply to most handguns now in use in Finland. According to the group’s chairman, Pekka Sauri, who also chairs the Finnish Central Association for Mental Health, there are about 250,000 handguns in Finland, and about 200,000 of them are semiautomatic.
      Under the proposal, the age limit for possession of those types of handguns that would remain legal under the new rules should be raised to 20 years, firearms permits should be temporary, and they should be granted only to those who have practiced shooting for at least two years.
     
The group points out that the perpetrator of the Kauhajoki killings had been granted a gun permit easily, and was deemed suitable as a gun owner after an interview with police.
      The board feels that safety cannot be based on the idea that potential crimes that an applicant might commit would be detected in an interview by police or a doctor.
     
In September 2008 22-year-old Matti Saari shot and killed nine students at his vocational college in Kauhajoki, as well as a teacher, and finally himself. He used a semiautomatic weapon. Although it was of a low caliber, it was capable of causing severe damage.
      Members of the panel determined that the process that turned Matti Saari into a school killer was the result of a long sequence of events involving many different factors. The perpetrator had suffered from bullying, had mental health problems, and expressed admiration for other school killers.
     
Some of Saari’s friends were worried that he owned a gun. However, the concerns did not reach school staff, and nobody had an overall picture of Saari’s situation.
      The panel recommends that from the point of view of developing mental health care for young people, drug therapy for mental health conditions should not be initiated for those under the age of 23 without an examination by a doctor with expertise in psychiatry, or the treatment of mental disorders in young people with pharmaceuticals.
     
Another recommendation is providing more resources for student health care, especially with respect to mental health, as well as mandatory medical checkups for students.
      The panel notes that guidelines for safety plans for schools are confusing. To promote safety planning for schools, the panel recommends that different guidelines be concentrated into a single document that would be regularly updated.
      The team also recommends that simple, easy-to-learn guidelines on how to act in different situations should be drawn up and distributed to students.
     
Commenting on the panel’s recommendations, Minister of Justice Tuija Brax (Green) said that if they were implemented, the measures would increase security.
      None of the recommendations were specifically targeted at the Ministry of Justice, however. The recommendations for taking away certain types of handguns fall within the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior, while other recommendations concern the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, and the Ministry of Education.
      Minister of the Interior Anne Holmlund (Nat. Coalition Party) said that the government can re-examine the proposals for restricting handguns. However, she said that the government’s current policy is that there will be no total ban on handguns.
      Holmlund’s interpretation of the recommendations is that their implementation would amount to a ban on the ownership of handguns, and she says that she doubts that the government wants to implement such a decision.
      She noted that the government made its previous policy decision on the matter well after the events at Kauhajoki. “I would be surprised if the government’s policy line were to change. The decision was unanimous, and nearly all matters that came up after Kauhajoki were known at the time”, Holmlund said to Helsingin Sanomat on Wednesday.
     
Coming out in favour of the panel’s recommendations was National Police Commissioner Mikko Paatero, who said that if the move were implemented, it would reduce the number of suicides and killings committed on the spur of the moment.
      However, he does not feel that it would necessarily prevent extreme acts such as school shootings.
      Opposing the proposed ban was one member of the panel, Pekka Aro of the police force of Central Finland. He said that if implemented, the policy would bring to an end certain types of target shooting involving semiautomatic pistols. He noted that some Olympic events would be banned in Finland.
      Aro also pointed out that the ban would only apply to legal weapons.
      He said that instead of a ban, he wants a 20-year age limit, and two year’s of shooting practice as conditions for a licence, and that the licences would have to be renewed periodically.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Kauhajoki police officer acquitted on gun permit charges (1.2.2010)
  Kauhajoki police officer claims there were no legal grounds to confiscate killer’s handgun (27.3.2009)
  Eleven die in shooting bloodbath (24.9.2008)

Helsingin Sanomat