Finland’s government has announced that it will open 300 additional shooting ranges for the public to maintain their firearms skills. While Finland has compulsory service for all adult men in its national army, a lot of them never pick up a gun again after their time in uniform ends. The government wants to change that after it provoked Russia last year by joining NATO.
Finland shares an 830-mile border with Russia. While Vladimir Putin has never expressed expansionist plans for anywhere in Western Europe, the mediocrities running NATO are absolutely convinced that he could attack at any moment.
Finns currently have access to somewhere between 600 and 700 public shooting ranges. The new government, however, wants to expand that to around 1,000 ranges and is actively encouraging its citizenry to get out and start putting some rounds down range.
It’s kind of amazing to see how quickly liberals will throw out their anti-gun sentiments the moment a threat is perceived. If you think back to the start of the Ukraine war, people like Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) were calling for America to send automatic rifles to Ukraine, so they could be passed out to untrained citizens.
Gun ownership is fairly low in Finland. About 12% of the population owns one or more firearms at home. The Finnish government, however, understands that its military could likely be quickly overwhelmed if Russia were to invade. That’s why they’re encouraging Finnish citizens to get back out to the gun range.
It looks kind of silly from the outside because there is zero chance of Russia invading Finland (unless Joe Biden really messes the world up in the next eight months). On the flip side, though, there is no downside to encouraging firearm ownership and training. We wish more countries in Europe would adopt Finland’s current attitude about gun ownership.
