Foreign Encounters:
Part 1
The other night, I was in a British-style pub (complete with
doubledecker London style bus monument just outside) talking with a Norwegian
guy.
The trial of the mass murderer Anders Breivik has been
covered here extensively. For those who
don't know who he is? Here is an excerpt
from Wikipedia:
Anders Behring Breivik (Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈɑnːəʃ
ˈbeːɾɪŋ ˈbɾæɪʋiːk]; born 13 February 1979)[1] is
a Norwegian accused mass murderer[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] and
the confessed perpetrator[13][14] of
the 2011 attacks in
Norway. On 22 July 2011,
Breivik bombed the government buildings in Oslo, which resulted in
eight deaths. He then carried out a mass shooting at a camp of the Workers'
Youth League (AUF) of the Labour Party on the island of Utøya where
he killed 69 people, mostly teenagers.[15][16][17]
I asked this Norwegian friend about the trial. The discussion turned to the maximum sentence
he could receive. The news had reported
the maximum sentence would be 21 years in prison.
As an American, this short short sentence was shocking. We then talked about how depending upon what
state (in the USA) the mass murder was committed in, Breivik might face the death
penalty. No European nation imposes the
death penalty. Although I have since
found out that Austrian murderers could possibly be sentenced to life in
prison.
This Norwegian friend mentioned that new research states the
death penalty is not an effective deterrent to murder as its proponents
claim. One argument, for example, is
that criminals do not have enough knowledge about the different capital
punishment laws in different states.
I then went on to state that, in all likelihood, even if he
was convicted in a non-capital punishment state, he would likely receive back
to back life sentences amounting to several hundred years.
A follow up conversation about this topic yesterday with an
Austrian journalist revealed the following:
Quite recently, there have been peaceful demonstrations in
Oslo against Breivik. The Prime
Minister, their head politician, has actually gone on the record to tell the
Norwegian people that this must be a time of tolerance.
Here is an AP article regarding demonstrators singing songs
as a sign of solidarity.
