While this is not required by law, I was told that landowners would not let me hunt moose, nor would a hunting team accept me, unless I showed I could hit a target - not just a paper target but a full-size plywood moose at 100 yards, standing and moving. I began to think more about the responsibilities of gun owners rather than gun owners' rightsīefore I could hunt, there was the trip to the rifle range where my shooting scores were registered. Instead, like all guns in Sweden, they had to be stored in a locked safe, so colleagues took them directly to the wildlife research lab that has a walk-in vault to store firearms. But I couldn’t take them to my apartment, as I would have in the United States. My employer, the Swedish Hunters Association, had filled out all the paperwork (including paying the tax), so there was no problem getting my guns into the country. 30-06 - because I didn’t want to miss a shot or wound an animal using unfamiliar, borrowed firearms.Īs a sociologist I thought that bringing my own firearms would give me some firsthand experience with European gun laws.
As a responsible hunter, I brought my own guns - an old 12-gauge shotgun and a Remington. Twenty years ago, I headed to Sweden for a sabbatical year to study the country’s attitudes toward hunting.