Norwegian Firearm Legislation

By Tom Bixby

On July 22, 2011, Anders Breivik murdered 77 young people on the island of Utoya, in Norway. Norwegians call it 22 juli, July 22nd, and it’s as familiar to them as 9/11 is to us.

In Norway, to own a gun, you apply to the police authority in your district for an acquisition permit (ervervstillatelsen). You specify the firearms for which you will be responsible. The permit to buy is valid for a year.

The dealer selling the gun sends the original permit to buy to the police, and returns a copy to the buyer. The copy authorizes the buyer to possess the gun or guns until a gun ownership permit is received.

You apply to the police authority in your district for a gun ownership license (vapenkort, weapon card). The police commissioner (police chief) issues the license. If you’re a hunter, it doesn’t take long; for a sports shooter, extended training is necessary.

You have to give a reason for buying the gun, and document a use for it. You provide, for example, documentary verification that you’re a hunter -- a jadgshein (hunting license).

To get a hunting license, you complete a 30-hour course with nine separate classes and pass a multiple choice test. It isn’t hard.

Or you want to compete in sports shooting. You join a gun club, take a course with three hours of gun safety instruction and six hours of supervised shooting on the gun club’s shooting range. Then you practice on the club’s range, at least fifteen times in a six-month period. You get a letter attesting to this from the president of the gun club and send it to the police, along with your application for a gun ownership license.

If you perform guard duties, you must prove that you’re a trained guard or member of a law enforcement agency, or civil defense personnel.

Self-defense is an allowable reason, but it must also be verified -- claiming self-defense, by itself, is not sufficient. According to the Firearms Act, “Permission may only be given to reliable persons of sober habits who need or have other reasonable grounds for possessing firearms, and who can not be deemed unfit to do so for any special reason.”

This gives the police the right and responsibility to assess your personality and habits. If you have a bad local reputation, you won’t get a license. No one with a police record gets a license.

If you are refused a gun ownership license, the police have to give you the reason in writing, and you have the right to appeal.

If you lend the gun to someone else, you can do so for no more than thirty days, and must have a declaration of the loan on file with the police.

If you are between 16 and 18 years of age, your guardian files the paperwork and is legally responsible for whatever you do with the gun(s). If you are under 16, you cannot have a firearm in your possession or accessible to you.

To own a gun, you must show that you have a safe place to store it. Gun safes are mandatory. The police will take your word for it, that you have a gun safe, but they can come and inspect your arrangements. They have to give you 48 hours notice. The inspection has to be conducted in private, not in front of all the neighbors.

If you don’t have a gun safe, you can get away with it sometimes, but then you have to store the gun in pieces, so that some essential part is stored apart from the gun, such as the bolt of a rifle, the slide of a pistol, or the barrel of a shotgun.

Most rifles and kinds of firearms are legal to own. The clip of a hunting rifle can’t contain more than three shots. Powerful, high-velocity handguns are not legal to own. Ammunition designed to expand or tumble on impact is illegal and unavailable in Norway.

Semi-automatic firearms which are legal in the 27 EU countries are legal in Norway. Fully automatic firearms are illegal. Converting a semi-automatic to fully automatic is a felony.

By law, a firearm can’t be in a public place. This includes air guns, spring guns, and anything that looks like a gun and might scare people.

In the United States, none of the above is required, not any of it.