Another shooting in a gun free zone in Finland

Well, there doesn't seem to be any attempt to consider the type of approach tried in the US and some other countries.

HELSINKI, Dec. 31, 2009 (Reuters) — . . . Finland's third shooting spree in as many years. Police said Ibrahim Shkupolli, 43, killed three men and a woman at the Sello mall in Espoo, a town near Helsinki, as shoppers stocked up for the New Year holiday. . . .

The New Year's Eve carnage followed shootings at Finnish schools in 2007 and 2008, after which Helsinki tightened gun control regulations, with further restrictions planned.

A Reuters reporter at the Sello mall, one of Finland's largest shopping centres, saw helicopters overhead and fire trucks around the entrances after the shootings. The mall was shut down as police hunted the gunman. . . .

Here is another piece on this:

Many Finns were also shocked to discover today that there are 1.6 million guns in our country of five million people. . . .

Today's killings were somewhat different. The suspected killer, Ibrahim Shkupolli, was a 43-year-old man of Kosovan Albanian origin. He shot his former partner at her home, four of her colleagues in the shopping mall where they were at work and, finally, himself. He had no licence for his 9mm pistol.

Instead he had several convictions, one for holding an illegal 9mm cartridge in 2006 and another for possessing a smaller hand gun hidden in his home in 2004. The 9mm gun was never found, though, perhaps because police did not look hard enough. In addition, a judge had ordered him to keep his distance from his ex-partner and her flat. Now she and five other people lie dead. . . .