15 people dead in Germany school shooting
DarkCrawler
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7936817.stm
Is it just me or are the death tolls getting bigger and bigger? While also being more frequent?
Fifteen people have been killed after a teenage gunman went on a rampage in south-west Germany, officials say.
Twelve of the dead were students and teachers at the Albertville secondary school in Winnenden, north of Stuttgart, police say.
The gunman, a 17-year-old former pupil, is also dead, but it is not clear whether he was shot or killed himself.
The teenager, who entered the school wearing black combat gear, died in a shoot-out 40km (25 miles) away.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is to make a statement on the shooting at 1600 (1500 GMT), a government spokesman said.
'Supermarket shoot-out'
The governor of Baden-Wuerttemburg, Guenther Oettinger said police killed the suspect, the Associated Press news agency reported.
Regional radio station SWR said the suspect was killed during a shoot-out with police in a town called Wendlingen, about 40km (25 miles) away from the school.
It said that he fled there in a car after the school shooting and barricaded himself in a supermarket.
There he shot dead two passers-by and two police officers were injured.
In total, nine students, three teachers and three passers-by are thought to be among the dead.
The chief reporter of the Stuttgart Journal newspaper, Kevin Latzel, told the BBC that there was a lot of confusion at the school.
"It's very horrible... the parents are crying, the pupils are crying and a lot of police is there and nobody knows really what happened," he said.
"They are very afraid, the pupils are calling their parents and the parents they want to pick [them] up but they can't do this, the parents they are not allowed to get into the classrooms," he added.
The attack is reported to have begun at about 0945 (0845 GMT).
The gunman "went into the school with a weapon and carried out a bloodbath", regional police chief Erwin Hetger said, the Associated Press news agency reported.
"I've never seen anything like this in my life," he said.
Witnesses said students jumped from the windows of the school after the gunman opened fire.
About 1,000 children are thought to attend the school, in the town some 20km (12 miles) north-east of Stuttgart.
Is it just me or are the death tolls getting bigger and bigger? While also being more frequent?
DarkCrawler on
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Because teenage rage is only because of the presence of firearms.
Because guns are fucking dangerous and private citizens have no business owning one.
To be fair, and I agree with you from the sounds of things on gun control, banning guns in a single city is the colossal failure there, because the city doesn't exist in a vacuum. You can drive east of chicago for a half hour and pick up a truckload of guns at a gun show, and then just drive back into the city.
I generally say the same thing about cars since way more stupid people have 'em and way more people are killed by 'em.
Taking guns away from people doesn't make them any less violent. Besides, most center fire rifles are bolt action - I could do a lot more damage with my bolt action 7mm mag than I could with my .22 semi-auto.
Why don't we move in the direction of: What will be the new moral panic? Or something somewhat more interesting.
Edit: yeah fine, not a gun thread.
There's no reason for private citizens to own pets, TVs or power tools.
Now those school shootings, what the fuck? What drives a person to do that?
Yeah, then you wouldn't have to shoot yourself at the end of the school shooting, because you'd still have money to go for a pizza afterwards.
But bombs just don't create the right kind of drama. Chainsaw would be my weapon of choice for a good old school massacre. But I suppose that, with a chainsaw, you need a certain level of expertise to accomplish anything beyond cutting your own foot. Guns are convenient, which is why these kids use them, but blaming (lack of) gun control for these shootings is a red herring.
Something's wrong in society and the education system, and going OMG GUNS isn't helpful, yet that's all anyone seems capable of talking about. The media reaction to the recent school shootings in Finland has been all about "lol the community is sad and confused" and "omg guns". Whenever someone asks "why" these things happen, it's a rhetorical question. Apparently when something is horrible enough, it becomes inappropriate to discuss causation and responsibility, and everyone - parents, the school, the government - gets off the hook.
and where do they get the idea? probably from other school shootings and their large media presence.
i just can't get a handle on what would drive someone to shoot up their school, though.
And if they did reveal their reasons they wouldn't make sense.
It was at the very least in the area because the fucker got a huge fine but his identity wasn't released
Yes, and I think that who owns a car should be much more strictly regulated than it is, perhaps even to the point of extending the legal driving age... but its 'a piece of metal with moving parts designed to shoot/destroy things'
There is no reason to have a gun other than shooting, it serves no other purpose unlike a car... can people not see how this is different from people owning a fucking tv or a bbq grill? Its insane. Kitchen Knives serve no other purpose other than cutting yes, but that is a neccesary useful application. Unless you are a farmer, there is no useful application to be gained from privately own a gun.
Please explain what you actually mean by this, because i'd like to think i'm misinterpereting you.
Thats horrible. Not quite as horrible as the actual event, but that some people find that amusing is kinda disgusting.
personally, I prefer the OMG GUNS angle, because all to often the question of why, at least here in Germany, is answered "Video games, duh!".
I dunno because I had the tools available and all the motivations, but it never occurred to me to take a gun to school.
That could be said of just about any hobbyist item, dangerous or no. I went through several thousand rounds last summer - do you think I killed several thousand people? Or animals?
FUCK.
My deepest sympathies for the people involved. This kinda hits hard to me, because the last time this happened in Germany, seven years ago, it was on a school that was part of my high school's exchange program. I was there two years before the shooting. It was not an easy time after that shooting.
I did NOT want to be reminded.
Fuck.
Well that's exactly the question. Why do they actually, you know, do it?
What is the difference between a kid who is severely bullied and grows up with a complex and a kid who is severely bullied and flips out and shoots up his school?
To me it seems like an issue of power - the kid wants to take some kind of power in his life, by any means necessary, because he has none. And they usually end up killing themselves because a) they realize that they don't really have any power, and b) it's a final demonstration of autonomous authority.
But that's really way too general. Everyone feels powerless and takes action to assert their own power. What drives someone to violence like this?
Thats the thing: No one is saying Guns caused this. Everyone knows that people cause things, but that allowing emotionally stunted, or simply overly emotional people, or anyone with the capacity to be hurt... access to a gun is just fucked up. Video Games are said to be a cause.
They can be attributed to how people die, but not the cause.
The second line is pretty much the truth in the US, guns (strong defense) are seen as what made us free in the first place, and keeps us free now. German attitudes are different due to how that's worked out in the past. The same with the Japanese, they legislated the army, and gun posession, out of existence (aside from the JDF, only for use when they were attacked on their homeland until recently), due to shame, embarrassment, fear or what have you over how an armed and militaristic population had been used in the past, and could be in the future.
What other Hobbyist items?
I'm at Sabres and Archery and then i'm stumped.
I don't think you killed people or animals no, but given the debate (its a weird example but bear with me) that has been going on in the BSG thread about how its a small courtesy to not spoil things for people in a thread title even if the harm cause is minor (and the thread title got changed...and there was only a minor harm involved there)... i'm sure it can be appreciated that hobbyists owning guns versus the potential massive harm they cause should be sufficient enough for the hobbyist to say, 'you know what, yeah the sacrifice wouldnt be too much for hobbyists to realise that owning a gun causes more problems than potential benefits'
Can you show me that removing guns would lessen the rate of violent crime?
Or do you advocate the banning of certain items based on the extreme statistical outliers?
EDIT: And my hobbiest items are any item that is unnecessary to survive in the modern world since your belief is that since guns aren't necessary it's okay to ban them.
Again, no one is saying that owning a gun MAKES you kill people. Video Games have been brought up here and I think it is a good parallel. Media suggests that psychologically games give you the killing urge, so it is relevant to respond:
'I've played violent games hundreds of times and never killed anyone or wanted to go on a killing spree'
in a way that
'I have a gun and haven't killed anyone' isn't because no one is suggesting you have an increased likelihood of killing someone through ownership.
I think I did ininterperet you as I thought you were justifying that you have guns because it earned you freedom, rather than just explaining that some people think that. Because the thing with that example, particularly since America is on foreign soil with its guns, is that they should be much closer to the Japan 'we get rid of guns out of shame' argument than the 'they keep us free' one at this point. Its been along time since the American revolution.... lots of other countries have changed over this period of time too, and it doesnt seem right to cling to that justification.
TONIGHT AT 11: KNIFE VIOLENCE ON THE RISE