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Guests at the Krudttoenden cafe, which roughly translates into the Powder Keg and is a popular Copenhagen venue for cultural gatherings, “experienced shock and fear — and tragedy,” Vilks wrote on his blog. As to free speech, “where do we stand now with that question?”

Area residents are shaken. Ellise Jensen, 35, an administrator at the Danish Energy Agency who lives about 540 yards from the site of the Oesterbro shooting, said she arrived home about 3 p.m. that Saturday and was out on the street an hour later when she saw police everywhere.

“I don’t know what to do about it, how to avoid being in the wrong place,” Jensen said. “I could easily have been there.”

The second shooting took place outside a synagogue in the center of the Danish capital, where a 37-year-old Jewish man died after being shot in the head by the gunman. Two police officers were also wounded in that attack. The suspect came from Copenhagen and was known to police.

On Saturday night Philip Engelund, 24, a graduate student at the Copenhagen Business School, was on his way to his girlfriend’s place near the station where the gunman was shot down by police.

“Normally, it’s a very, very great city to live in. You can be out late without being afraid. You don’t have to think at all about being afraid,” he said. “But when I went to my girlfriend’s house between the two shootings, I was nervous. Even today, when I took the bus, I was still looking around.”

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The government is struggling to strike a balance by protecting its citizens without undermining their famously laid-back relationship with authority. Danes are used to addressing their politicians by their first names. No government buildings are sealed off by fences, and citizens have been free to press their noses up against the windows of the halls of power if they wanted to. Before Sept. 11, 2001, people could even freely enter the parliament building. They now need a pass.