At least two people were killed and several are injured after a shooting overnight Friday in central Oslo, local police said early Saturday.
The shooting occurred at London Pub, an LGBTQ nightclub that bills itself as "gay headquarters since 1979," Norwegian public broadcaster NRK reported. Pride Parade, a highlight of Oslo's pride celebrations, is set to take place Saturday.
Law enforcement said that they had taken a person into custody near the scene of the shooting. They have not commented on a possible motive, though a police official told NRK that they did not currently believe it was a terrorist incident; the pub is located some 300 yards away from the Storting, Norway's legislature.
London Pub has hosted Pride-related celebrations for years. A drag show and a pride-themed bingo session were held there as recently as Thursday.
Norway has some of Europe's more gay-friendly laws. Earlier this year, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store marked the 50th anniversary of Norway decriminalizing male same-sex relations by formally apologizing for its past treatment of the LGBTQ community. "I apologise for the fact that the Norwegian authorities conveyed, through legislation, and also a range of other discriminatory practices, that gay love was not acceptable," he said.
Shootings are relatively rare in Western Europe, but in July 2011, a Norwegian man killed 77 people by setting off a bomb outside the prime minister's office in Oslo and opening fire at a youth summer camp organized by the left-leaning Labor Party. The atrocity was one of the Nordic country's most heinous crimes in recent memory. Since then, Norwegian lawmakers have banned semiautomatic weapons, the type of firearm used in the 2011 rampage.
