Sweden to tighten gun control laws after deadly shooting 1 Favorite 

The government will introduce more rigorous vetting procedures for firearms licences and restrict access to semi-automatic weapons.

Sweden plans to toughen controls on gun ownership after its deadliest mass shooting in at least a century.

A gunman with legitimate licences for at least four weapons shot dead seven women and three men at an adult education college in the central city of Orebro on Tuesday, before turning one of the guns on himself.

Among the firearms owned by Rickard Andersson, 35, was a semi-automatic Browning rifle, designed for hunting large wild animals, according to the public broadcaster SVT.

In response to the killings the centre-right coalition government said it would tighten vetting procedures for firearms licences and make it harder to obtain semi-automatic guns.

It will also reverse a 2023 reform that made it possible for people to own “military-style” firearms such as the AR-15, which has been used in a number of American school shootings.

“There are certain types of weapons that are so dangerous that they should only be possessed for civilian purposes as an exception,” the government said. “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.”

At present any adult with a clean criminal record may apply for permission to own a shotgun, a handgun or a semi-automatic rifle, although they have to explain to police why they need the weapon. It is also possible to own fully automatic rifles with a special permit.

There are about 23 legally owned guns for every hundred people, compared to five per hundred in the UK, ten in Denmark, 32 in Finland and 120 in the United States.

The radical right-wing Sweden Democrats party, which supports the government in a confidence-and-supply arrangement, said it would support the changes to the law, although some of its politicians have individually declared their opposition.

The Social Democrats, the main opposition party, welcomed the announcement but also called for a review of every existing firearms licence.

On Friday police said they had finished identifying the victims of the Orebro shooting, who were between the ages of 28 and 68.

One of them was named in the Swedish media as Bassam al-Sheleh, a 48-year-old baker and father of two who had been studying at the institute to improve his Swedish.

“There is no one who can fill his place, with all the joy he brought,” one of his colleagues told SVT.