[Nuke]

But that's always after somethings happened...

by all means, invent a time machine so we can stop the mass murders before they happen.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

I'm sort of curious as to how a simple helicopter qualifies as "heavy machinery," given that even local TV stations over here own them.

Well, they are heavy...

[Black Wolf]

So here's an infuriating fact:

Police spokesman Sturla Henriksbo said Norway — a land some 1,750 kilometers (1,100 miles) long with around 50,000 islands alone — has only one police helicopter, based at an airport north of Oslo. And that helicopter has only four seats: two for the pilots, one for an equipment manager.

What. the. hell.  Since when is Norway a goddamn third-world country?

WA is nearly 10 times the (physical) size of Norway, and we only have one helicopter. Fewer islands, I'll grant, but still. And the single extra seat is because, assuming it's used like ours, it's intended for chasing suspects through urban environments, following cars during high speed pursuits etc. etc. - not for deploying troops.

[Mars]

How. . . ? Denver is no megacity, but you'd be hard pressed to figure out how many helicopters we have in the state (quite a lot indeed) or how many the police have access to.

[Dragon]

In Poland, police has 16 choppers, most of them Mi-2s or deveratives, which are suitable for transporting a fair amount of troops. In Krakow itself we have two PLZ Kania choppers, which are capable of taking 9 passengers.
Also, I heard that they'll be changing law in Norway because of that incident, for the purpose of it's investigation.

[Grizzly]

..it might even be worth looking into economic conditions in Norway. From a brief look I've had into the conditions, you might even assume they're living within their means.

Well, that was a brief look indeed.

Hmm. I do remember to have read somewhere that the Norse goverment put a lot of money they earned from oil in reserve, and used it when the economic crisis came about, thus managing to guide Norway trough that without all that much issue.

[NGTM-1R]

WA is nearly 10 times the (physical) size of Norway, and we only have one helicopter. Fewer islands, I'll grant, but still. And the single extra seat is because, assuming it's used like ours, it's intended for chasing suspects through urban environments, following cars during high speed pursuits etc. etc. - not for deploying troops.

Not every country has the posse comitatus/equivalent issues about borrowing military equipment for civilian purposes. In fact, there are a good number of countries in Europe that would have sent in a military or paramilitary team for something like this rather than civilian SWAT.

[Mika]

Hmm. I do remember to have read somewhere that the Norse goverment put a lot of money they earned from oil in reserve, and used it when the economic crisis came about, thus managing to guide Norway trough that without all that much issue.

I was visiting Norway some years ago (Bergen to be exact). During the discussions with the taxi driver, it came apparent that Norway has more than enough of funds, mainly because of their natural gas and oil reserves. I recall the driver saying jokingly that the Norwegians had at some point been discussing about buying Microsoft...

Of the Scandinavian countries, Norway is the most well of at the moment. Believe me, this sad incident has nothing to do with available funds in Norway, and everything with the fact that nobody thought this could happen. I repeat that you need to spend some time here to see why it is so, just reading this on the internet without sufficient background from the region is guarantees you will be thinking it on the basis of your own surroundings.  Scandinavia is quite an extraordinary place in the global scale. I have met a Polish exchange student who was amazed that the wallet he dropped in the bus was actually returned to him next day, and even more so because nothing was stolen... To give you perspective, my thoughts were like: what, what did you expect then?

EDIT: Just recalled something else
The same Polish guy later said that what he has seen here is something that he hasn't seen anywhere else in the world. He realized that he had to change his whole way of thinking when he realized that for a quite significant majority of Scandinavians, the thought of swindling him doesn't even appear on their minds - they just do not think that way.

[Thaeris]

If I had to move to Europe, I always thought that I'd like to move to Austria, even though I've spent a decent portion of time learning French (France would thus be a more logical country to move to, but there you go). I might need to add Norway to the list.

I do hope that the nation can maintain that kindly mindset despite the recent tragedy inflicted upon it.