Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Mule Deer and all others.....Sweden Disaster

I have been forgetting to write to the 24hourcampfire about a tragic situation in Sweden. A fellow that I know by email has endured persecution in Sweden because he was selling, as related to me, once fired Norma rifle brass. He was arrested on trumped up charges(sound familiar) for allegedly fabricating ammunition and selling it internationally. He was in jail for close to a year and only saw his wife once or twice that whole time. Eric(not his real name) and his attorney made the prosecuting attorney look like an idiot in court. He now has the Swedish Army sued because in Sweden you cannot demand a person to be fired because you have a contract with the government, until proven guilty, as was his employers situation. It is not lawful to do so as was revealed to me over the internet by Eric. All of this sounds like something that could happen here in the land of truth, the brave, and the free???...$$$$....!!!! When it comes to the far left nuts, who knows what they will try next. Yeah, it appears Sweden has it's nutty element in their society. Goodness knows we have an abundant number here in the U.S. I hope Eric gets all of his troubles solved. I also hope that all of us vote in a way that will protect the Second Amendment. All of this info was sent to me by internet. What a mess....WHAT A MESS! I received three batches of once fired Norma brass from him for 6.5 x 55, 9.3 x 62, and 30-06. The quality was perfectly good brass once cleaned, resized, and trimmed. I fear this may have messed up getting him to go to the range and find me some more brass.

Wow! That's very interesting. I have shot and hunted in Finland and Norway, but not Sweden. My general experience in both Finland and Norway is their guns laws are relatively relaxed compared to some other European countries--but have also hunted in Europe enough to know many countries also have relatively relaxed gun laws, at least compared to what many Americans believe.

When I hunted in Finland it was with a group of both American and European gun writers. One was from France, and among others he owned close to 50 rifles, some of them semi-autos, and several semi-auto handguns....

That is quite interesting, both posts. I would not have expected French laws to allow ownership of that level. I'm glad to hear it but it did surprise me.

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Curious to know if your acquaintance from France had some kind of special privilege or if it is common (feasible) for a typical French citizen to own firearms like your acquaintance.

As I recall, France tightened their laws on semiautomatic firearms after the big Islamic terror incidents in 2015. I don't know the exact details of the current laws though.

I did a little research and it looks like it's possible to own semiautomatic firearms if you have the right permits, but it's not clear how easy it is to get those permits. If you're an IPSC shooter and belong to a club and compete, I think you can own the appropriate pistols, but it's probably more difficult to get an AR-15 or AK-47. I don't think the average person can just walk into a gun store and purchase a Glock.

About a year after 9-11 I was going through security at the airport here in Montana. I had a coat on that I used hunting that fall, and unbeknown to me there was a spent 300 WSM case in the pocket (completely fired, empty, and with punched primer). But TSA had a minor meltdown - they pulled me out of line, did a pat-down, and got a sheriff standing there involved. Looking the sheriff in the eye, I asked all those surrounding me if any of them knew the first thing about firearms. I explained it was left-over from elk hunting that fall, and that was how an empty brass cylinder inadvertently came to be in my pocket. I said, "this is Montana, we hunt elk." The Sheriff was sympathetic, but the TSA acted like I'd just attempted another 9-11 lol. Ultimately they confiscated the "evidence," and let me on the flight. A couple weeks later I got a letter from the FBI detailing my infraction...

With all of the legislation passed(911 aftermath) at the federal level do most people have any idea how our federal govt. can hold us without trial and on and on. Just look at all the stuff that has been going on with people facing charges concerning former President Trump and the alleged insurrection. I have a question. What in the world was in these people's minds,or lack of good sense? This Tennessee guy would never do something like that mess on January 6th. Well.... One unarmed woman was shot to death. Down here in Tennessee, "We the People" know this stuff can happen. Folks, we should know we are to show respect for our reps at the state and federal level. However, I disagree with people who say there was insurrection involved. Vandalism, violent mob, dumbkof, sheep blindly following, stupid......guity of all the above. I just hope we do not ever see this happen again

Yep. Something just over a year after, I was going through Boston, returning home from a business trip. My keyring included the .280 Rem case I shot my first buck with many years before. It was tarnished, even slightly dented around the neck from wear and tear over the years, and there was a tiny ring eye screwed in the primer hole to hang it on the key ring. Mind, I’d flown with it before and had just flown up from FL two days prior with it. As my stuff was going through the scanner, the operator gets all animated, calls over the shift supervisor. That guy gets all authoritarian and demands to know whose keys these are. I acknowledged and he starts acting like I’m trying to slip a weapon through capable of taking out the entire terminal. Police officer and another TSA come over. New TSA turned out to be recently retired military. Supervisor accusingly asks why I was carrying it, so I told him. Sentimental value, pleasant memory with my dad, etc. I asked him what the problem was and he lost his sh-t. I explained the obvious, and asked again what the problem was. He started turning shades of red I hadn’t seen yet. The police officer kind of stepped back with a roll of his eyes and the other TSA picked up my key ring and made a show of examining the case, then pronounced it harmless and inert and said it wasn’t a weapon of any kind. That got him a scolding whereupon he was instructed to confiscate it and the supervisor walked away, swaggering like he’d averted something terrible.
The sympathetic TSA removed the case from my key ring and motioned me down to the end of the line and quietly told me to write down my address on a slip of paper. He pocketed the slip of paper and I got my case back about a week later.
None of that surprises most of us, given the idiocy among those ignorant about firearms and related items in the 20+ years since. At the time, I was startled to being shocked.
The case is now on a shelf in my den, no longer on my key ring.

About the same time I was returning from Europe through the Frankfurt air port. There was a very heavy police presence. The person at the inspection station asked me if I had anything that could be used as a weapon, I handed him my swiss army knife. He laughed and pointed to his MP5 and said"This is a weapon, that is a pocket knife" I saw TSA in Memphis confiscate 2 cap pistols from a 5 year old. The world is ending one day at a time

I’ve made it through airport scanners with knives and multi tools, as well as live rounds, all by accident. I didn’t even know until I was at my destination.

Other times I get my bag searched because they saw an empty casing or an unloaded bullet, buried at the bottom of my bag.

Once at Fairbanks International I was headed to Barrow with some research equipment in checked baggage. Pipes attached to electronic temperature readers, data loggers, etc. It honestly looked like pipe bombs on the scanner. TSA called for me, brought my bag over, opened it, shook his head and then put them back in my bag and I was on my way.

There’s a lot of subjectivity with TSA workers. I’d imagine a lot worse than a live round sometimes gets through.

Wife’s friend was sitting in her seat at 30,000 feet and reached into her purse for something when she realized she forgot to remove her .357 before going through security. 😬

Needless to say she didn’t say a thing to anyone and everyone survived.

I had a female friend do the same - but she didn't discover it until going back through TSA on her way home after two weeks away. It was a huge problem, that cost a lot of money and court appearances to get through.

A friend of mine, who's a public relations guy in the firearms industry, had a carry-on duffle bag with a stiff plastic plate in the bottom. We made a trip to New Zealand together in 2007, flying of out of LAX, and when we returned the TSA people found a fired .30-30 case under the plastic plate. The interesting thing was that he hadn't taken a .30-30 to NZ, and in fact hadn't traveled with a .30-30 in around 2-3 years--and the LAX TSA folks hadn't found it when we checked in to fly over to NZ. (Luckily, he didn't have much trouble.)

One of the airports I've had some trouble with is Minneapolis-St. Paul International. On two consecutive trips to somewhere further east I was called down to the TSA office because my GUN CASE showed traces of fired smokeless powder during their tests. I had to go down in the underground baggage area to open the case and so they could--what? Make sure the case had fired guns inside? They admitted everything was legal, but didn't apologize--even though in the second instance I missed my scheduled flight to Montana.

I asked the TSA once what they were swabbing for and he replied gunpowder residue. I said that considering I was returning from a hunting trip and I did a bit of shooting that I’d be surprised if it didn’t alert to residue since I never wipe my case down. He said “we’ll see”. When his machine didn’t alert and everything was locked back up I told him that machine was really making me feel safer and it’s obviously reliable….

Dipshits.

I just flew to Florida with my Glock 19 and the African albino Oreo swabbed the hell out of it…I’ve never had such a thorough swabbing of my case. It didn’t alert either. The vanilla Oreo proceeded to tell me that I didn’t need to break my pistol down and I replied that it was easier than having them mess with my pistol since it was easier for non-gun familiar folks to see that it’s not a “threat”.

I always fly with guns and have never once had any trouble. One time in New Orleans I was called back to the gate so the cop could fingerfuck my model 36 because he liked it for a backup but that was simply a PIA for me for a few minutes of hustling. They kept saying “everything is fine” Joe Dipshit just wanted to ask you about it. I said are you kidding me?…I have afucking flight to catch so please immediately lock my case up in my presence so I can rejoin my family at the gate. He apologized but I was a little annoyed by his dumbfuckery!

AcesNeights,

Very interesting!

Which is yet another example of how much TSA "experts" vary.

Another interesting experience occurred when Eileen and I flew to the Czech Republic in 1993 to hunt red stag. This was when the Soviets had just left, and the line-up in the airport included several Romanians with Volkswagen bug-size bags full of T-shirts with logos like "San Francisco 57ers". But there was also an orchestra from somewhere, with lots of instruments in various cases. The head customs agent waved me and my gun case through, apparently because it could have held a trombone.

When we got to the other side, the outfitter's driver asked (using hand signals, and a little English) if we had the correct "papers." We obvisously didn't, so he took us back inside and the customs agent took us to the police station back inside, which provided our "papers."

Also once flew to Hermosillo, Mexico for a Coues deer hunt. When we landed, it turned out the then-president of Mexico had landed just before us. We were told our rifles would take a while to process--by a group of very young Mexican soldiers. They escorted us out to the parking lot with their AR-15s, suggesting we check into our motel and have dinner before coming back to retrieve our rifles. We did as suggested--and it worked out OK!

I have spent time as an Airport Manager. What you experienced there was absolutely a left wing TSA staff.

Every TSA station in the country finds both fired and unfired rounds in hunting backpacks. It happens ALL THE TIME. I guarantee that airport you visited has a large bowl of bullets in the back room. As well as knives and other contraband.

So many of the tribal democrats posing as security agents don’t know their butts from apple butter that nothing they do would surprise me. Free to move about the country?

Years ago flew from Detroit to Oklahoma the Oklahoma Bombing was several weeks prior no checked luggage just a brief case and a small carry on bag no problem....on the way back I was searched and my bag and case were rubbed with a chemical cloth to check for explosives....it was like yelling "bomb" when the machine gave a reading they shut down the check line grabbed me put on handcuffs shuffled me and my baggage to a small room asked what was in the bags I said nothing....they opened the bag and found nothing but paper work and clothes....one officer took out a knife and was going to cut the outside cover of my alligator brief case told him if he cut it there would be a law suit and the case cost more than he made in a month....
After a lot of talking and 20 minutes later what had happened was my brief case was next to my loading bench for several days and I was loading shotgun shells....some powder must have got on the brief case and with how rough alligator is stayed on the case in the small crevasse....
After that I made sure to keep everything away for the loading area that was going on a plane....

Interesting stories - all of them.
If "Eric" has any 9.3x64 brass, I could sure use some.

If you think reloading/shooting causes explosive residue issues......working in an underground mine that used a semi-load of explosives/blasting agent every week ensured that you'd get grilled and further screened at the airport, your bags would get dumped out and each item inspected, especially your boots. Never missed a flight on account of it though.