A Small Country, a Whole Lot of Guns
A Small Country, a Whole Lot of Guns
Experiences from Finland
Image: "Finnish soldier in the north-eastern side of the Lake Ladoga, Winter War, 1 February 1940" by Cassowary Colorizations.
By: Mila Seppälä, Ph.D. candidate, University of Turku, Finland
I have been researching gun politics and the gun violence prevention movement in the United States for three years now. The work is a part of my dissertation in political science and North American Studies at the University of Turku in Finland.
I spent nine months in Austin, TX, last year interviewing activists from all over the country (thanks, Zoom), and I was often asked the question, “Well, what’s it like in Finland?” Here I must confess, at first, I did not know.
I had never seen a gun before. I had never even heard of anyone owning one beyond the vague but terrifying stories about my grandfather sometimes flinging a rifle around in an alcohol fueled rage (as bitter, traumatized children of war, isolated in the countryside, sometimes do).
Guns are not a visible part of the modern welfare society I know my country as being. As it turns out, they are a significant part of it, whether I recognized it or not.
Finland is quite a big country in terms of landmass. For comparison, if you started from the border of New Mexico and Mexico and drove north you would end up in Wyoming. Within that area there are only 5.5 million people, with over a million concentrated south around the metropolitan area of the capital of Helsinki.
The Ministry of the Interior reports there are over 1.5 million guns and more than 600 000 licenses in the country. That’s a whole lot of guns for a small country. In fact, in Finland there are more guns relative to the population than anywhere else in the EU.
The reasons for the amount of guns can be found from a multitude of places. Often people contribute it to the vibrant hunting culture in Finland. Most of the country is rural and sparsely populated. 72% of the country is covered by forests, and hunting is a source of livelihood for many, particularly in the northern parts of the country. In addition, gun clubs all over the country offer chances for those interested in taking up shooting as a hobby. Mandatory military service for all men over 18 guarantees that a new generation of men continue to learn how to shoot a gun.[1]
There are of course historical and geographical reasons for the mandatory military service – mainly the 832-mile long border between Russia and Finland and the memory of the war fought against the Soviet Union on Finnish soil in 1939–1940 and 1941–1944. During the Cold War, many hid their guns in caches all over the country in fear of another Soviet invasion. In 1917, Finland gained independence from the newly formed Soviet Russia (peacefully, but after considerable amount of tension and violence within the country). In 1918, a brutal civil war divided the country (and families) in a way that scarred generation after generation. The guns are not here just for hunting – we have a violent past that dwells in our lives still.
Yet, perhaps I can still be forgiven for not realizing how much gun culture plays a part in our current society. For all of our past, it is still a very different sort of gun culture than the one found in the U.S.
We have a very strict permit system, where local police departments grant permissions for firearm ownership only on a “may issue” basis. Acceptable reasons, for example, are a provable record of hunting, sport membership in a gun club, a collector’s license, or a requirement for a job. Self-defense is not an acceptable reason. Police departments interview and conduct suitability tests to see whether an applicant should have a permit to own a gun. They can ask for a doctor’s statement if there is reason to fear the gun would be used in an unintended or unsafe manner.
Handgun permits are only issued for sporting purposes on a five-year basis with at least two years of a gun club membership beforehand. Permits for guns defined by law as particularly dangerous (both short and long guns capable of firing more than 21 rounds before reloading) can only be granted for collectors and those who can prove it is essential for their job. Safe storage is mandatory for gun owners that own more than five guns or even one particularly dangerous gun. Guns can only be carried and transported in public spaces (including in a vehicle) if you have an acceptable reason and the firearm is unloaded in a container.
Many of these gun control laws were placed after two school shootings in Finland – in Jokela in 2007, where nine people were murdered, and in Kauhajoki in 2008, where ten people were murdered. We have not had a mass shooting since. According to Statistics Finland (the national authority on compiling statistics), in between 2011, when the laws were enacted, and 2021, the overall rate of gun homicides and suicides have also been on a steady decline. In 2021, six of the 70 homicides and 70 of the 700 suicides were committed with a gun. In 2011, the comparable numbers were 16 homicides out of 100 and 100 suicides out of 900.
Of course it is hard to compare Finland to the United States. We are comparably a small nation. We are also a high-trust society with a robust welfare safety net. According to an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) survey conducted in 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, 86% of the Finnish population considered the information provided by political leaders reliable, 85% trusted the police, 66 % the civil service, 61% the national government, 53% the parliament, and 52% their local government. 80% of the people surveyed said most people can be trusted.
For comparison, a Gallup poll in the United States surveyed people’s confidence in their institutions. In 2020, 13% said they had confidence in Congress, 39% in the presidency, 48% in the police, 24% in the criminal justice system. In the same poll in 2021, only 64% said they had confidence in science. Trust is essential for social control policies such as gun control to pass and work in the way they were intended.
How do you increase trust then? OECD published their survey findings from 22 different countries and concluded that in order for democratic governance to build trust in citizens they need to invest in “higher social and economic well-being, more inclusive growth, personal liberties, access to justice, and peace” (2022:103). Citizens also need to feel like they can participate in decision-making processes and that their voices are being heard. Misinformation and polarization increase distrust.
But it can be done. Desire for a safe society free of gun violence is not utopian. It is already happening.
Mila Seppälä is a Ph.D. candidate at the John Morton Center for North American Studies (JMC) and the Department of Philosophy, Contemporary History and Political Science at the University of Turku, Finland. Her research focuses on youth political participation and the development of political imagination in the gun violence prevention movement in the United States. Notable publications include a co-written essay on student testimonials on Campus Carry in the Journal of American Studies (2021) and a book chapter in the open access volume, Up in Arms: Gun Imaginaries in Texas (Brill, 2022). Seppälä has an MA in English from the University of Turku.
References
Digital and Population Data Services Agency. “Firearms permits and licences.” https://www.suomi.fi/citizen/rights-and-obligations/security-and-public-order/guide/order/firearms-permits-and-licences.
Gallup (2023) “Confidence in institutions.” https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx.
Ministry of the Interior. “Hunting and target practice popular recreational activities in Finland.” https://intermin.fi/en/police/firearms.
OECD (2022) Building Trust to Reinforce Democracy: Main findings from the 2021 OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions. OECD Publishing, Paris. https://doi.org/10.1787/b407f99c-en.
OECD (2021) Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions in Finland. OECD Publishing, Paris. https://doi.org/10.1787/52600c9e-en.
Statistics Finland (2022) “Cause of death.” https://pxdata.stat.fi/PXWeb/pxweb/fi/StatFin/StatFin__ksyyt/?tablelist=true.
[1] While the obligation can be fulfilled in civil service and women can also volunteer, the overall trend is that young men do a half a year or a year-long stint in the Finnish Defense Forces.
Finnish flag image by Merja Partanen from Pixabay