The rampage in Norway last year that left 77 people dead demonstrated the need for the right to carry a firearm for self-defense. Police took over an hour to respond and during that time people at the Labor Party youth camp were entirely helpless because Norway doesn’t allow its citizens the right to self-defense. 77 people may be dead, and the police may have taken over an hour to actually get off their asses and do their job, but people of Norway can taken solace in the fact that the police are apologized:
Norwegian police have admitted for the first time that they could have responded faster to a massacre at a youth camp last July.
Anders Behring Breivik opened fire on young activists gathered on Utoeya island last summer, killing 69 people.
The police, distracted by a bomb Breivik had set off in Oslo and hampered by technical failures, arrived an hour after his killing spree began.
State Police Director Oystein Maeland apologised on behalf of the police.
“Every minute was one minute too long,” he said.
“It is a burden to know that lives could have been saved if the gunman had been arrested earlier.”
Lives could also have been saved had one or more people at the youth camp been armed. When seconds matter the police are only an hour away.