I was fascinated by one news item today. A man – and that’s all we’re being told – a man, born in Denmark but having lived all his life in Norway, went on a killing spree in a small Norwegian town, armed with ‘bow and arrow’. Before I go into details I want to express my sympathies to the families of all who were killed. Guns, arrows, knives, bombs or trucks: it makes no difference when one of one’s own has been brutally ripped out of one’s family’.
The stark facts have made it into our and the Continental papers. They’re all only repeating the Norwegian press reports (e.g. link, link, paywalled). We‘re told that the killing spree lasted for half an hour, that at least five people are dead, that two were injured, that the attack started in a grocery supermarket, that the man seemed to have ‘acted alone’ and that investigators are also looking to see if there was ‘a possible terrorist motive’. Here’s The Times, quoting Mr Øyvind Aas, the police chief of Kongsberg, the town in Norway where this took place:
“Aas said the killer’s motives were unknown and added that he could not rule out terrorism. He said all lines of inquiry remained open. Police said that the killer appeared to have acted alone. “There are many crime scenes,” Aas said. “This person has committed criminal acts over a large area.” He told the broadcaster NRK that police were trying to find out how many people had been attacked. He said there could be victims who had not yet been found.” (link, paywalled)
So far – so utterly horrible, especially since people couldn’t run away because they heard nothing. Gunshots alert everyone that something terrible is taking place, giving one time to run and find protection. Bows and arrows are silent, as are knives. Witnessed told the police they saw a man with a bow in his hand and a quiver of arrows – but we don’t know if it was ‘only’ a bow which was used or if the murderer also used a crossbow. There is a huge difference. That’s why I wondered because we’re also told that:
“Some of the arrows pictured strewn around the site of the attack appeared to be crossbow bolts while others had flights indicating they could be used with a bow. ‘The man used a bow and arrow… for some of the attacks,’ police chief Øyvind Aas told reporters adding that police were investigating whether other weapons had also been used.” (link)
One cannot shoot crossbow bolts from a bow. So it makes sense to look for ‘other weapons’. Here’s a description of crossbows, how they work and what they look like and here’s one for bow-and-arrows. Archery has a long history here in the UK – let’s just mention Agincourt while we’re at it – but it’s now also an Olympic sport. We don’t know what sort of bow – as opposed to crossbow – the murderer used. There are all those hi-tech modern sports bows – and there are the replica bows which are made for people who engage in historical re-enactments as their hobby.
Over the covid months I happened to watch and enjoy various videos on utube, about re-enactments and historical weapons, about investigations in the efficiency of those historical replicate weapons. Let me reassure you: using such bows, especially replicate bows, requires a huge amount of physical training and of physical strength. One cannot just walk into a sports shop, buy a modern sports bow and go on a shooting spree. One needs training, not just for the techniques but for strength. That also applies to handling crossbows. Where could one do such training? In archery clubs, in sports clubs, that’s where.
This begs the question: how easy is it for such murderers to slip below the horizon, to train innocently with sports weapons until the day he uses his training to kill people? Perhaps he trained in solitude – not difficult in an empty country like Norway. The Police will surely find out – and then what? Forbid the sport of Archery altogether?
Cast your minds back a few decades, remember what happened after the Dunblane massacre where the Major and then the Blair government banned handguns of all calibers (link) – not that this prevented crimes committed using such guns. So it is sadly on the cards that not just Archery might become regulated if not outright forbidden. It is also sadly on the cards that re-enactment groups will find themselves in the limelight.
It’s sadly on the cards that our overzealous politicians and civil serpents will be only too happy to demand police certificates attesting no previous criminal records before people can follow their hobby, before they can buy replica bows and crossbows. And how long will it be before our ‘investigative’ reporters swarm out to investigate people who participate in historical re-enactments, or to investigate the craftsmen who produce such bows?
It is like a race between evil minds who are prepared to use anything as weapon for mass murder – the history of the past years ahve sadly shown us that even trucks can be used – and normal citizens being more and more curtailed in their activities and hobbies. Of course, we won’t mention who these evil minds usually turn out to be. Of course we won’t mention that many of us are reading between the lines when we note that the MSM again only speak of “a man”.
Meanwhile, the usual suspects in the MSM will blame computer games and re-enactment groups for creating the possibility of this murder spree. Meanwhile, we can expect the usual suspects in the MSM to demand that government ‘do something’ to prevent such murder spree from happening here. Meanwhile, our lives will become curtailed more and more, preventing people from exercising their hobbies, putting everybody under the blanket suspicion of being potential murderers.
When will our politicians and the ‘concerned’ in the MSM understand that there’s no legislation which can prevent someone going on a murder spree? Some decades ago, one such evil man went on a killing spree in Cologne, using a home-made weapon of mass destruction (link). No legislation can stop such evil murderers – they will always find a way.
There’s no legislation against death. It comes to us all, by all and any means. Accept it and live with it. Legislation to make our lives a joyless misery while we wait for inescapable death is not the solution.
KBO
Update.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10091051/Norway-bow-arrow-attacker-convert-Islam.html
Unlike firearms, any hobbyist can make a bow of any description with materials found in the countryside.
Crossbow need a days training/practice to use which was why the French used them.
As a teenager, I made a crossbow out of a motor vehicle rear spring.
Yet another muse limb, wouldn’tcha know it! About time it was banned.
“there’s no legislation which can prevent someone going on a murder spree”
As my old headmaster used to tell us: ‘Read, remember and inwardly digest.’ Governments and law makers everywhere only ever work on what are known elsewhere as ‘workarounds’. Workarounds are ways to circumvent a problem rather than remove it. A wise man once called it this way: “The heart of man is wicked above all else. Who can know it? Government cannot legislate for wicked, only the physical results of wicked.
Leaving the citizens free to enjoy their sports and hobbies is one thing but surely a Government has a duty to keep out, or properly police, those known to wish to harm its citizens.
Wrong time, wrong place – well yes, think of all those young people out enjoying the Ariana Grande concert. Now we know that it might have been avoided with proper vigilance.
I don’t like crowds, especially shopping crowds, I’m one of those who likes to move swiftly from shop A to shop B, not pootle and shuffle. That may have saved my life back in 1983. I used to visit the trichologist on the top floor of Harrods, I had my last appointment of the year in late November, I didn’t fancy the December Christmas shopping crowds. We were in Brighton when I heard the news of the Harrods IRA bomb – it could easily have been me walking past that car.
It is mentioned… a convert to Islam.
Why?
Perhaps because the Churches, of all shades of Christianity, in the West have become so weak and “woke”?
No. It’s BECAUSE the Churches have gone woke. There is no longer any meaningful moral guidance. The Scriptures are interpreted to suit the current fashion and according to political direction.
I agree absolutely. When a religion makes no spiritual or moral demands on its followers it appears pointless and directionless, as with the modern woke CofE under the guardianship of the last two Archbishops. Those who have spiriitual needs and standards to live by, will inevitably look elsewhere for guidance,
I am guessing he will be mentally ill; nothing to do with the RoP to which he converted. Move along; nothing to see here. Unlike Anders Breivik who killed 77 people, but was of course a far-right extremist who just had ‘a personality disorder’, which allowed him to be criminally liable.
This from the Telegraph is paywalled but the title is self explanatory.
“Norway bow and arrow attacker was Muslim convert known to police:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/10/14/norway-bow-attacker-muslim-convert-known-police-radicalisation/
Thanks, I was just going to mention this report which was published only at 9,30am today.
This man, according to the DT, had converted to islam, was known to the police which ‘had previous contact with him’ and, according to a report in a German paper, had been ‘in contact with health services’. He murdered three women and one man, aged between 50 and 70 years.
Isn’t it astonishing that these murderers always, but always, regardless if its in the UK, in France, Germany or now Norway, were already ‘known to the police’ …
Err, lone wolf, err mental problems, err nothing to see here . . . err short staffed, err more money err . . .
It certainly is astonishing Viv. They do seem always to be ‘known to the police’.
There is something wrong here but what is it?
In a way it is quite right that the police can not take any action until a crime is committed. But if he is ‘known’, how and why is he known, except by having already behaved suspiciously in some way.
Perhaps the media say that to add ‘spice’ to the story. Or perhaps the police are too busy doing politically correct things to do their proper job.
Who knows. I don’t but I see your point. Our lives will be curtailed more and more.
Each time something like this happens, Peter Hitchens says there are always drugs in the background. Prescription drugs (certain antidepressants) as well as hard drugs. Watch to see what he says about this. He’s been saying this for years. But politicians won’t address this.
I was going to say exactly the same thing Mary and this is undoubtedly true.
I’m not sure about crossbows. I’ve seen very small ones that could be lethal. And even a low draw weight (if that is the correct term) longbow is capable of projecting a reasonably nasty arrow.
Norway. Why Norway?
JF
Yes, why Norway? Can we say ‘it’s the culture’? As for small crossbows being lethal – well, even slingshots can be lethal. The point is that they all demand some training, you can’t just go and order a bow, cross~ or otherwise on the internet and then go and kill people with it as if they were guns.
Clothing afford some protections – it’s winter in Norway so people would’ve been wearing thick clothes. Since we don’t know what type of bow or bows this murderer used we can only stick with generalisations – but they won’t hinder our ‘concerned tie’ from creating legislation to ‘protect’ us.
JF- Bows go from about 50 lbs pull – often used by women an d beginners on up to over a 100 lb pull.
I have seen one at 120 lbs hit a three feet across target at 170 yds shot. Yes, he was very good.
The pully arrangements allow a semi-relaxed pose at full pull, unlike those at Crecy and Agincourt.
To use an americanism, ‘things have moved on’.
Five shots a minute, I have seen twenty / min mainly forgotten – explains the hail of unguided arrows at Agincourt and Theopolae (sp) – we shall fight them in the shade.
As to crossbows, there arre some ‘great ones’ with, like medievel ones, a winding mechanism,. It makes it possible to cock it by a child. Pull of a 175 lbs and width of nine inches, yes 3/4 of a foot wide, These can group bolts in a one or two inch circle at 100 yds. They run out at around 1,000 pounds to buy.
And then there are arrow heads. Expanding blades from a ‘pointed’ head are really nasty for hunting. Whe the point hits a target two blade like razors pop out to cut through flesh to one and a half inches and more – depends on the force used to dispatch the arrow / bolt. Years ago these were outlawed but can still be bought and no doubt tracked on amazon etc. Alternative is theFNAC 15eme arrondissment France who sell them over t he counter.
Catapults anyone? Then again . . . these are all thing you can make yourself.
Next up ban socks. Put a stone in one and use it like a rice flail / truncheon. Crude but effective.