A flyer found its way down in my mail box the other day. It said “Lämna in vapen” Hand in your weapon. I got pretty surprised (överraskad). There has been three weapon amnesties in my life time. One in 1993 when approximately 17000 unregistered firearms and 15 tons of ammunition were handed in by Swedish citizens. In 2007 there were almost 14000 weapons and 15 tons of ammunition, and in 2013 15000 illegal weapons and 36 tons of ammunition were handed over to the Swedish Police.

50% of the weapons were hunting weapons (jaktgevär) and 30% handguns (enhandsvapen) and 20%  air rifles (luftgevär), automatic guns (automatvapen) and air guns (luftpistoler). If we compare the situation of legal weapons on the Swedish market there are only 10 % handguns and the rest 90% is hunting weapons.

The reason for the weapon amnesty is the ongoing high profile shootings and gang violence in recent years mainly in Malmö and Gothenburg. The main reason for this is narcotics and gang-related issues. The aim is to destroy all the weapons that will be handed in to the police. The amnesty does not refer to explosives because the police has no capacity to take care of these on spot and it is also dangerous. People can hand in their weapons from 1/2-18 until 30/4-18.