I saw an overhead picture of the tiny island. There is one building and 50% trees cover. He could roam the island with little impunity for quite a while. He choose his killing field well for his purpose. And because of the short distance to target and no real shelter he could get away with lower accuracy by using high frangible bullets that cause a lot of internal injuries and bleeding. He wanted those kids to suffer as much as possible.

No, in this situation, there wasn't much they could do. A few of them played dead or covered themselves with another body but other than that it was basically wait for help to arrive. Some tried to swim away from the island and he shot them in the water. Some kids barricaded themselves in the one building and put up mattresses against the walls. The killer also wore some sort of police uniform which confused the kids as they thought he was there to help them.

The killer also didn't resist with a fire fight when the police showed up. I think he wanted to remain alive so that he can have his 15 min. in court and "EXPLAIN" his extremist views. I don't think he should be given his pulpit.

The mystery seems to deepen. I may have missed it in the US press, but the Russian press is reporting that there was a police officer who was supposed to be on the island, and that he is "missing." The Russians are relying on a report from Sky News.
Russian story (in English)
http://en.rian.ru/world/20110724/165368453.html

Are the police in Norway armed, or are they like the police in England?

It seems to be a very bizarre story. Today for example heading back down Glen Esk near the bottom of the Glen near to Dalbog, there was huge police activity (Grampian Police) with at least a dozen marked police vehicles and police helicopter activity performing a search pattern at Glen Lee (so a major incident). A police land rover was observing us coming down of the hill in Glen Lee. More police vehicles (sirens on) heading up the glen passing through the very sleepy village of Edzell later in the afternoon. We had noticed that there was a large scout camp out the previous day where the police had been called to. Yet there appears to be nothing being mentioned in the local or national media so far.

Like any news stories on events such as this, there are always conflicting reports. In regards to the police officer, other reports on Google News suggest that the officer was off duty and hired out as a private security guard on the island and was killed by the gunman.

Authorities revealed Sunday that one of the attacker's first victims on the island was an off-duty police officer who had been hired by the camp directors to provide private security in his spare time.

There is also some excerpts of the gunman's 1500 page manifesto here. Very chilling, graphic and sobering...

XT, please give the source for your info, you seem to be much better informed than me. I am using Reuters:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/24/us-norway-idUSL6E7IN00C20110724 , which does not indicate use of any automatic weapons and states "mostly young people attending a summer camp", which makes me think there were adult victims, also.

If you see someone shooting everyone he can, that should be a pretty good indication of their intent. With that, you should know that if no one stops the shooter, more will be shot... more will die.
If you think you have to run and hide because someone starts killing folks, you are not helping to end the problem. I understand it, you want to save yourself and you might want to get family or friends to safety, you are fearful about the outcome, but if you give up taking an active part in your security because you believe someone not at the scene can help you in an active shooter scenario, well, may others learn from your mistakes.

Just a reminder to everyone that this forum isn't dedicated to arguing gun rights. So far this discussion has been pretty good, let's keep it that way.

As for lessons learned, I'm thinking from here on out teaching my kids that if they find themselves in a situation like this that they need to hide and not come out until LOTS of police are on the scene rather than go running to the first police officer they see.

-Blast, horrified by this event.

It takes a lot of training and courage to fight a shooter in such a surprise attack. Are there group tactics against a single shooter? Perhaps, but anything that has any chance of success would require quite a bit of preparation (training, setting up traps in the terrain, stocking projectiles like stones, etc.) That leaves us with a spontaneous mass charge, which would have a high casualty rate with very little chance of success. You will need a huge suicide squad. Boys or not, the situation does not seem comparable to Flight 93.

Besides, we had a shooting on an army base. Did the unarmed soldiers fight the shooter?

Situational awareness works for the "rational" sorts of crime. In fact, it is often more valuable than a concealed firearm, since some criminal tactics leave you with no chance of drawing the gun when the threat presents itself. Only situational awareness will keep you safe from danger. This type of mass shooting is a new form of crime, possible only with modern firearms. We may have to start catching people before they get to carry out the massacre. This seems like an almost impossible task.

Da Bing

In the event of children locking themselves in a room and surviving, they should be taught they do not open the door for anybody except a person who knows the "Safety" word. It may delay getting them home, but they will get out alive.

Anders Behring Brevik plagiarized 'Unabomber', The Telegraph

Da Bing

This guy did his homework. Unfortunately.


AND he knew they didn't have guns, weren't likely to fight back.


Thinking is no longer in fashion. 'I want to know' supercedes 'What is best for the situation'.




I'm sure there were adults there. But with just one person shooting, I always tend to think HE HAS TO RELOAD SOMETIME! Was it so inconceivable that someone might have the idea to get around him and bash his head in with a chunk of wood or a rock?

Gun control won't stop a lunatic, but it sure can stop the people who can stop the lunatic.


Well, someone kicked a pretty good hole in those figures, didn't they?

Sue