Interesting comparison, but of course it isn't a competition (and I'm not suggesting you mean that, of course).
It is interesting to think about how much 2011 attacks affected us Norwegians. Living in Oslo, I know people who work in the government buildings that were hit, people who earlier years have been to the AUF camp at Utøya, and I've also personally been to Utøya at a Maths camp. My girlfriend were a only few blocks from the bomb when it went off.
The next six months, I'll be working in R6, one of the buildings in the executive government quarter where the bomb went off, but only suffered minor damages. I'll be walking past the bomb site. In fact, I was there earlier in the summer. Here's a photo I took: http://instagram.com/p/MK9aWrtM3z/
Norwegians are generally peaceful. We have a low crime rate and high employment rate. We do rank 11th on number of guns per capita by country[1], though, but the few people I know who have guns are active hunters. Norway usually tops the UNs list of best places to live. Norway has its share of problems, of course, but it usually pales in comparison to problems other places.
The 2011 attacks were just unbelievable, and I try not to think about them in detail because it's too emotional. Before the attacks, Norway was so very, very innocent and unspoiled. We've managed to retain some of our innocence, perhaps, and even one year after the attack, I feel that we're still trying to find out how to handle it.
I'm not entirely sure what my intention was with this post, but now that I've written it, I might as well post it. If you've read this far, I hope you got something out of it - perhaps new insight into the Norwegian psyche, if anything.
