Norway to ban semi-automatic guns

Norway is set to ban ownership of semi-automatic firearms, with the ban to come into force in 2021.

That year will mark the tenth anniversary of a mass shooting by right-wing extremist Anders Breivik on the island of Utoya which left 69 people, most of them teenagers, dead.

Breivik was reportedly armed with a Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle and a Glock pistol when the shooting took place.

Peter Frolich, a Conservative member of parliament’s standing committee on judicial affairs, announced the move following a proposal to ban semi-automatic weapons by the minority right-wing government last year.

“Today, it has become clear that there is a parliamentary majority in favour of the government’s proposal. Semi-automatic weapons will therefore be banned in Norway,” Frolich said.

The Guardian reports that the ban is not a total one, as it “allows for several exemptions, in particular for shooting sports.”

The announcement comes as debate about semi-automatic weapons intensifies in the US, following a deadly school shooting in Florida that claimed 17 lives.