Camden: GOP legislator brought a knife myth to a gun debate

Kristiansen went on to make an impassioned defense of that argument, saying there’s an epidemic of violence around the world, and if we don’t get to the root cause of this violence “it’s not going to matter with the tool is.”

He capped it off with an anecdote about a trip he made to Norway, where some two dozen schoolchildren were stabbed to death on an island.

The statement that more people are killed with knives than guns had several reporters scratching their heads. The description about a mass stabbing of more than two dozen kids at an island camp in Norway had us looking at each with quizzical expressions. But heck, the House minority leader said he was there when it happened. So, you know, maybe we missed it or just don’t remember?

Thus began the research to check out the stats and the anecdote. The stats were easy.

And they were wrong. More people are killed by guns in the United States than by knives, and it isn’t even close. The federal government breaks down violent death statistics by the “tool,” and handguns alone accounted for 7,105 murders in 2016, more than four times greater than “knives and other cutting instruments.”

A search of “massacres by knives” turned up no such event as Kristiansen described. “Massacres in Norway” did bring up a 2011 incident at an island camp where 77 people were killed, more than two dozen of them kids.

The problem was, they were killed by firearms, specifically a semi-automatic carbine with large capacity clips, and a semi-automatic handgun. This didn’t really back up Kristiansen’s argument.

OK, so Google doesn’t know everything, as I like to remind journalism students. Anything that resembles this in The Spokesman-Review’s electronic archives? No, but we’re small. The Washington Post? Nope. The New York Times? Negatory.

Unable to search the website of the main newspaper in Oslo because it is inconveniently in Norwegian, a call to the press attache at the Norwegian Embassy in Washington, D.C., seemed the best route.

“Two dozen victims? Does not ring a bell,” Jon-Age Oyslebo said in a voice that seemed to have a bit of incredulity. But he promised to check with others in the embassy, just to be sure.

A short time later, Oyslebo called back to say no one knew of such an incident. Norway only averages between 25 and 40 killings a year, he added. Well, there was a spike to 55 in 1985, and of course the Utoya massacre in 2011. But folks at the embassy were pretty sure there was no such incident with a knife or a sharp object in the past 10 years or so.

Incorrect information

On Friday, House GOP communications sent an email in response to an interview request: “In the media availability, he got some wires crossed and, ultimately, got the facts wrong. There was, as you point out, a mass attack in Norway but it included a firearm (not a knife). Rep. Kristiansen apologizes for sharing incorrect information. It was not his intention to misrepresent the facts.”

He plans to correct the record at the next media availability in which he participates, staff added.

I probably should call the Norwegian embassy and tell them it was all a mistake, that we’re not really crazy out here in Washington.