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Swedish PM Does Not Rule Out Use of Army to End Gang Violence

posted by janrinok on Monday February 26 2018, @07:34PM   
from the big-guns dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Sweden will do whatever it takes, including sending in the army, to end a wave of violence that has seen a string of deadly shootings, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said in Wednesday.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sweden-violence/swedish-pm-does-not-rule-out-use-of-army-to-end-gang-violence-idUSKBN1F629L

Sweden's murder rate is relatively low in international terms, but gang violence has surged in recent years and Swedes are worried that the police are unable to cope.

In 2016, the latest year for which official statistics are available, 106 people were murdered in Sweden, a country of 10 million.

But Swedish TV reported there were over 300 shootings, mostly in turf battles between gangs over drugs, protection rackets and prostitution.

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Original Submission

• Re:MACP is pretty much outlawed in the U.S. Re:MACP is pretty much outlawed in the U.S. (Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Monday February 26 2018, @08:49PM (4 children)

  by janrinok (52) on Monday February 26 2018, @08:49PM (#644178) Journal

  So in the US the National Guard are not used to help during regional disasters? That is MACP, it doesn't seem to be too outlawed there. Any time that military personnel are used at the behest of local or regional government in any task other than war fighting, it is usually under MACP. I suspect if you look closely you will see that it happens quite often in the US.

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• National Guards are State-centric, not federal. National Guards are State-centric, not federal. (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @08:54PM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @08:54PM (#644184)

  Please, read the whole linked article for a pretty good picture.

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  • Re:National Guards are State-centric, not federal. (Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday February 28 2018, @05:47AM

    by janrinok (52) on Wednesday February 28 2018, @05:47AM (#644990) Journal

    Law and order is likely to be a major issue in a parliamentary election scheduled for September with the populist, opposition Sweden Democrats linking public concern about the rising crime rate to a large increase in the numbers of immigrants.

    One political party in Sweden has 'linked public concern' with the issue with immigration. The populist party are anti-immigration, and so they will try to link any of Sweden's problems to immigration whenever they can, It does not make it so. There is no proven correlation between these particular crimes and the immigrants, although there are lots of other crimes that can be easily and justifiably linked to them. The problems that are causing concern are "drugs, protection rackets and prostitution", all of which existed before the current influx of immigrants.

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• Re:MACP is pretty much outlawed in the U.S. Re:MACP is pretty much outlawed in the U.S. (Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Monday February 26 2018, @09:09PM (1 child)

  by frojack (1554) on Monday February 26 2018, @09:09PM (#644199) Journal

  In spite of the name, the National guard is under State Government control when deployed as a police force in the US.
  Perhaps that's a distinction with out a difference in your mind.

  --
  No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.

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  • Re:MACP is pretty much outlawed in the U.S. (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday February 27 2018, @01:52AM

    by NotSanguine (285) <{NotSanguine} {at} {SoylentNews.Org}> on Tuesday February 27 2018, @01:52AM (#644377) Homepage Journal

    In spite of the name, the National guard is under State Government control when deployed as a police force in the US.
    Perhaps that's a distinction with out a difference in your mind.

    Actually. I think that, in this case, it is a distinction without a difference.

    IIUC, Sweden does *not* have a federal system like the US. As such, any National Guard analog in Sweden would have to be controlled by a central entity, since there is no Federal/state government separation in Sweden, as there is in the US.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr

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