In the investigation, which was led by Justice Petter Asp, it is proposed that the current regulation on when police officers may fire their weapons – the so-called shooting announcement from 1969 – be replaced by a law, the Shooting Act, in January 2025.
The police have previously wanted to review the shooting announcement, which, according to the government’s press release, was described as “outdated and difficult to apply in several respects”.
“The proposal means that the police may have the right to use firearms in slightly more situations than is the case today. The rules, however, are not expected to lead to an increased use of firearms because there are high requirements for necessity and justifiability,” the government writes in its press release .
More generous rules around pointing weapons at people
At the same time, it is proposed that the authority to shoot to detain a person due to, for example, serious mental disorder be removed, citing, among other things, that there is no support for it in international conventions such as the European Convention.
The police writes himself on his site that: “In many of the incidents where police officers fired warning shots and opened fire, it was stated that the person they intervened against suffered from mental illness.”
In the investigation, more generous rules are also proposed for the police to point their weapons at people “in order to have sufficient preparedness for a possible attack from the person at whom the firearm is directed”, according to the investigation.