Sweden to tighten gun laws in wake of Örebro mass shooting

Sweden’s government has announced plans to strengthen its gun laws, including by restricting access to semi-automatic weapons, after the country’s worst mass shooting.

On Tuesday, a gunman killed 10 people at an education centre in Örebro, west of Stockholm. Police have not said what type of weapon he used but they have said he had a licence to own four weapons – three of which were found beside him.

“The horrific act of violence in Örebro raises several key questions about gun legislation,” the centre-right coalition government, which relies on the support of the far-right Sweden Democrats, said. As well as tightening legislation, it also said it wanted to improve the way that people considered “medically unsuitable” for weapons possession were reported.

“We have to ensure that only the right people have guns in Sweden,” Ulf Kristersson, Sweden’s prime minister, said during a visit to Latvia.

Swedish hunters, of which there are hundreds of thousands, have long been able to apply for licences for semi-automatic weapons. In August 2023, the Swedish environmental protection agency lifted a ban on military-style models, meaning guns such as the AR-15 were permitted for hunting.

The government said on Friday it wanted to reimpose restrictions that existed before 2023 and develop a strategy to seize military-style weapons. “The AR-15 is an example of a weapon that is compatible with large magazines and can cause a lot of damage in a short time,” it said.

The government said a recent report had found that several of the requirements that should be taken into account when assessing a person’s suitability for a weapons permit were not clearly stated in weapons regulations, and that they should be set out in law. These include age, knowledge, skills, some medical factors and how law-abiding a person is.

It also plans to add provisions on doctors’ reporting obligations when it comes to weapons and the police’s ability to revoke permits.

The main opposition party, the Social Democrats, said it welcomed the government’s announcement, but called for all weapons licences that have already been issued to be reviewed. It also said there should be a review of how registers between authorities were cross-checked.

Police have yet to name the gunman, who apparently killed himself, or the victims, but have said that the victims included people of “multiple nationalities, different genders and different ages” and that they are investigating whether the shooting was racially motivated. The Syrian embassy in Stockholm has said its citizens were among the dead.

The suspect has been named in media reports as Rickard Andersson, 35, a former student of the school who lived locally. He is understood to have attended maths classes at the school a few years ago and had been unemployed for a decade.

Among the victims was Salim Iskef, 28, who phoned his fiancee, Kareen Elia, 24, from the school and told her he had been shot. “He called me and said: “I’ve been shot, they shot us.’ He said he loves me and that’s the last thing I heard,” she said in an interview.

Members of their church said there was standing room only at a memorial service for Iskef on Thursday night.