Massacre in a German School

[Otto]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,706189,00.html
New gun law call as city mourns
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,706208,00.html
(with some additional information about European gun laws)

kwp wrote:
> "We'll get your "progress" with a delay of four or five years."
>
> "Such a massacre never happened in Germany before... we had "little"
> massacres with two, four or five victims, but 18 (including the runner
amok
> who killed himself) - this is new...
> he was a nineteen-year-old-guy, returning to the school where he was
thrown
> out some months before and killed with a pumpgun 15 teachers, 2 girl
> students and himself."
>

The mere fact that something like this happens is worrying, and every single
case must be looked upon individually. To speak generally of a new quality I
don't think that the death toll or the question where it happens are the
decisive factors. Even one of the hardest gun laws in the world could not
prevent it, that's disturbing us.

We are always pointing to America, to tv and pc games, we are not surprised
to see such things happening where people have easy access to guns, but not
"here" where you have to develop a certain amount of criminal energy, where
you must have criminal contacts and enough money to get a pumpgun. You
cannot simply go to the next whorehouse, put 10.000 Euro on the table and
ask your local pimp for it, like the movies are telling us.

My father delivered his WW-2 Beretta to the police station when he moved to
an old-age home some weeks before his death, otherwise it would have been
part of my heritage . . . I didn't even knew that he had had one at home,
btw illegally from 1945 up to the 70s.

"Nach Angaben des Innenministeriums waren 2001 in Deutschland 7,2 Millionen
Waffen legal im Besitz von 2,3 Millionen Personen. Darunter waren 650.000
Sportschützen und 350.000 Jäger. Bei den restlichen 1,3 Millionen
Waffenbesitzern handelte es sich überwiegend um Erben von Waffen und
Personen, deren Waffenbesitz im Zuge von zwei Amnestien in den siebziger
Jahren legalisiert worden war. Die Zahl der Personen, die aus
Sicherheitsgründen Waffen tragen dürfen, lag im vergangenen Jahr bei rund
15.000. Pro Jahr werden rund 2000 illegale Waffen beschlagnahmt."
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,193907,00.html

Coincidentally the German Bundestag was talking about & passed a more strict
(ha ha, due to a *compromise* already weakened) gun law precisely at the
time when the incident happened, and the notorious pro-hunter Christian
Democrats did not take *off* some "nasty" commentaries against the
government's proposals from their website yesterday. It goes without saying
that the "new" law is a joke:

WaffRNeuRegG
http://dip.bundestag.de/btd/14/077/1407758.pdf

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,193907,00.html
http://www.cducsu.de/ <presse> <pressemitteilungen>
26. April 2002
Norbert Geis, Hartmut Koschyk
Waffenrecht: Rot-grün in letzter Minute bekehrt
Vom Saulus zum Paulus mutiert

I wonder what they say now. I bet it sounds a bit like Nunc Ives Le Spark.

Otto