As the details about the police’s inaction in the Uvalde shooting at a Texas elementary school emerge, people are shocked and angry. However, it is not the first time that law-enforcement incompetence has cost the lives of young people. In 2011, the Norwegian political activist Anders Behring Breivik murdered 67 people on an island while the police fumbled to get to his location.
The Attack
At 3:25 p.m. on July 22, 2011, an enormous bomb activated near government headquarters in Oslo, Norway, killed eight people and injured more than 200. Less than two hours later, the man behind the explosion appeared at a political youth rally on Utøya, a small island 20 miles northwest of Oslo, dressed as a police officer. He identified the only good guy with a gun, a retired police officer hired as a security guard, and shot him.
After creating a gun-free zone, the murderer systematically became the fox in the henhouse, hunting down the youths and shooting them. After nearly an hour, he got tired. He heard a helicopter approaching, assumed it was the police finally arriving, and sat down for a lunch break while awaiting arrest. It turned out to be a television crew. After filming him, it left, and so he decided to continue the hunt for another half-hour.
Police Response
After nearly 70 minutes, the police arrived on the scene. The local police did not have guns, and the Oslo police did not have helicopters, so they had to drive through heavy traffic to get to the island. The 20-mile trip took them almost 30 minutes. When they arrived, the local police didn’t have boats. They tried to get there in an inflatable craft but had to abort the mission because it took in water.
(Photo by Robin Zandwijken/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The police reached the island only after receiving help from local private boat owners. The mass murderer immediately surrendered upon their first contact. He had already phoned 911 twice to turn himself in, but since law enforcement was nowhere in sight, he kept shooting.
On that day, the military had an exercise on responding to terror attacks. The soldiers had helicopters and snipers ready who could have reached the island in 10 minutes, saving dozens of lives, but they were never asked.
Self-Defense
Although the Second Amendment was created to dissuade a centralized federal government from becoming tyrannical, the Uvalde shooting and the 2011 Norway attack provide gruesome examples of why private gun ownership is equally about self-defense.
The police cannot be counted on to stop an attack in a timely fashion. The only way to deter mass shooters is to let them know they will be met with lethal force by armed civilians wherever they go. Gun-free zones are safe spaces for mass murderers.
