News Analysis: One year on from Kauhajoki

Most significant change is new Firearms Act, now before Parliament

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By Jukka Harju
     
      As far as the police are concerned, this is one anniversary that should go unmarked.
      When something has happened once, it can happen again, which is exactly what did transpire. School shootings have a habit of piling up, as has been seen in the United States, in Germany, and in Finland.
      What has also been seen is that the perpetrators copy earlier perpetrators and are given fuel for their actions from the publicity that surrounds earlier cases. Hence there is no cause to go banging on about the subject in the media.
      But in any event, today (23.9.) is one year on from the shootings at a vocational school in Kauhajoki, in which ten died before the gunman also ended his own life.
     
Since then, much has happened.
      The most significant thing is the new Firearms Act, now before Parliament, the essential intention of which is to make it markedly more difficult in future to acquire handguns. It will have no effect on the guns already in circulation.
      The shootings in Jokela (in November 2007) and Kauhajoki raised to public attention the fact that Finland is among the leading countries in the world when it comes to the number of guns owned.
      This was nothing new to those in the hunting fraternity, but elsewhere the subject generated quite a stir.
      Finland was revealed as a kind of "little Texas", and in the discussions that have rolled back and forth over the new firearms legislation there are no great signs that the Finns are very keen to give up their guns even now.
     
The list of actions that have been taken in Finland since the two school shootings is lengthy and varied: there are "adopted" police officers attached to individual schools, the police have established themselves with a presence on the Net, schools have devised security contingency plans and given training, there have been projects put in place to reduce bullying and marginalisation in schools.
      All these are a means to prevent it ever happening again, but at the same time there is a tacit acknowledgement that two could become three.
     
The police have honed their tactics, and have travelled abroad to learn from the experiences of others.
      The basic premise of the police approach is to stop things in their tracks, to get the gunman isolated from others, and to make contact with him.
      If things go according to plan, lives will be spared, and even the life of the perpetrator.
      Each and every Finnish police officer will also have received additional training by the end of this year on procedures to be followed in the case of fast-moving dangerous situations.
      This training will go through hypothetical situations from the perspectives of the use of force, legal considerations, and occupational safety.
      There is a need for this, when situations develop abruptly and unexpectedly, the bullets are flying, and the nearest Karhu swat team may be hundreds of kilometres away.
     
One small lesson that was learned in Kauhajoki was that in certain circumstances even firemen can have guns turned on them, and that police officers could need breathing apparatus to go into burning buildings. Hence they have undertaken training in this department.
      The police appear to be still on their toes over the two cases. Many do not use the word "if", but "when".
      And then there are the threats against schools, that recent history has shown will always surface when school shootings are in the limelight.
      In the space of three weeks immediately after Kauhajoki, there were 126 reported cases of threats being issued against schools and school premises.
      But at least the public awareness of possible threats has been heightened.
      Online images of people posing defiantly with guns are beginning to be quite as bad an idea as making wisecracks about carrying bombs when passing through an airport security check.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 23.9.2009


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Families of Kauhajoki victims claim large compensation in damages from government (8.9.2009)
  Firearms and responsibility main topics at hunting exhibition (16.3.2009)

See also:
  A farewell to small arms? (30.9.2008)
  COMMENTARY: Innocents and innocence over spree-killing trial (22.9.2009)

Helsingin Sanomat