Cops in Iceland Fatally Shoot First Person Ever in Their History

ísland?From the island that was once the location,
a
millennium ago,
of maybe the closest a society’s come to pure
libertarianism comes news that Iceland’s had its
first police shooting
in history.
Via euronews
:

According to an Icelandic news agency, an armed man in
his fifties had been making threats to his neighbours, prompting
police to evacuate the apartment building where he lived.

Shortly after 05:00 am local time the man started to fire shots
from a window. Police returned fire. According to eyewitnesses,
some sort of smoke bomb was thrown into the apartment through a
broken window. Armed police entered the apartment of the gunman at
around 06:00 am and the man was shot in the process. He was taken
out in a stretcher and taken to hospital before being pronounced
dead.

Other European countries have similar track records. Police in
Germany
shot 85 rounds
in all of 2011. Iceland, though, is different.
Unlike much of Western Europe, the country is “awash with guns.”
It also has one of the lowest violent crime rates in the world. But
strict gun laws aren’t useful in preventing police shootings
anyway—witness
Chicago
, the number of puppycides
that enter the news cycle, and the
various

police

shooting

stories

that

involve

no

firearms
, except the police’s.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/02/cops-in-iceland-fatally-shoot-first-pers
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