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the boy, 17, was a calm person, but was described to have been more aggressive by very close friend(s). He played table tennis and was a weapons freak. His father legally owns and stores in his household 15 firearms, sidearms as well as rifles, he is member in a local shooting club. The boy was said to have been a good shooter, too. The boy loved to spend time in the cellar playing and handling weapons. He also had a strong interest in horror videos (I know it sounds like clichées, but that's what they said). Friends said in a close intimate social setting he was quite aggressive, while giving an opposite impression in public: being a close, relaxed, almost shy person. He was also said to have alienated and driven away friends in the past by his aggressive, arrogant behavior, showing off with the money of his father.

It seems he intentionally targetted girls, and pupils of the 9th or 10th classes, which is taken as a hint that he was after people he knew, and girls he know. He killed 8 girls, but only 1 boy in the school. It is speculated that disappointing social experiences and the experience of being rejected, play a role in this context.

15 weapons in the household. :dead: Firearms are no books or porcellane miniatures. A weapk is a weapon, and that si what sets it apart from almost all other items and things a person can own. Why couldn't that strange person of a father just collect stamps, if numbers were what counted for him? The bad dreams he now will be haunted by - are well-deserved, I think.

That is a given. And if I had trust in maturaity and responsibility in people, I'd be the last person ever opposing legal gun ownership. But these massacres once again prove that there are simply too many wakkos out there, coming out of the blue without prepration for them. That does not apply to the killers only, but to folks beeing irresponsible in general. Check this school shooters father, he had 14 guns in a safe in a basement and one up in the sleeping room. That one up there was used by the kid to do his shooting.

One also has to differ between ppl that actually plan on killing ppl with a gun, and folks that either act out of effect or see the possibility to get famous by using a gun that is available to them. Guns are by far the most easiest means to kill, with the single push of a trigger. No need to get close and personal like with a knive or scissors. No need to waste energy in a brawl or get endangered onself. Guns are by far the most easy means to kill. I am going as far as to say they have such a fascination with a lot of folks one is almost curious as to how it works. Hardly a wonder, because that is what they are designed to do.

Had this father no guns at home, I doubt the kid would have had the balls to kill anybody and eventually had either taken a grip on his life, comitted suicide if not, or might have killed anyways later on. It is debateable what would have happend to him or how he would have acted, but unless he were to become a serial killer I doubt 16 people had to die.

ABC-weapons don't kill anyone at the moment, does that mean they should be legalised?

And I could trust even one person with the power of government over me, I'd be the first. The statistics never tell the other side. In America I know two people personally and know of several more for whom the ownership of a handgun foiled a home intruder. If I know that many, then how many lives did gun owners save last year?

You can only feel safe if you take away the only means an old guy like me has of making himself safe. I can only feel safe if I can prevent guys like you from using the power of government to control my life.

And around we go.

You see, we had this in another discussion already, the point is not about you having the requirement to be safe. That I understand. Within american conditions I'd want a gun, too. Obviously it is required indeed.

But, the day this urgent need is coming up here, too, I will consider this society having failed. Till then I will support weapon bans over here as well. Because, were the laws even more tight, this massacre would not have happend. And the alternative beeing to have children and teachers having guns, too...well, seriously, when it comes this far, this country is going down the drain anyways.

Not that it means anything, I wonder if he was into the violent video games?

Or Dungeons & Dragons?

@ Bewolf: Fair point, and taken.

So, you know for a fact that this youngster who would kill people would follow the law and not have illegally obtained weapons?

Eventually, I could live with an argument of legal gun ownership for self-defence. It depends on the single case.

But I also say that there are plenty of people whom I see as such that I do not want to see them with access to firearms. Like I also do not want to see quite some people having the right to hold pets. Or fighting dogs. Or sitting behind the steering wheel of a car. - And that'S why in general I am agai8nst the general permission that in principal everybody can own firearms.

Just the fetish some people - also here in the forum - make of it, regarding how many weapons and ammunitions they claim to need, and why it must be automatic weapons, and weapons designed for use in wartime scenarios - this is what kills the seriousness of it for me, and I use the word "fetish" intentionally and in it's original meaning here. It's much the same why some macho-men think a car with less than 220 HP is not a car to be taken serious.

You do not need assault guns for self defence, you do not need machine guns to protect a farm from the wild bears, and owning a 9mm automatic or a revolver cal.38 (TOTALLY sufficient to protect your house and family in the given crime scenario!) and owning a MP-7 with magazines of 40 rounds and a fire rate of 950 per minute - that are two totally different things.

Why somebody claims a right to own a whole collection of such weapons, or demands the freedom to do so, is beyond me. I do not accept any right of civilian people to turn themselves into one-man-armies. the special case of the first amendement to the Us constitution can only be understood historically, that amendement made sense in the time it was written. In modern times, it makes no sense anymore, since both the Indians and the British are gone since long.

and if you live in a neighbourhood where you think you need the freedom to wage war in order to defend your living there, than you definitely live in the wrong neighbourhood and better should move away before thinking about founding a family.

Every idiot and every one-eyed son-of-a-bitch could use a pistol to kill somebody. With a knife it is a bit more difficult. with bare hands it is much more difficult. With rapiers or swords, it needs special training. But killing with firearms - is no art at all. And that is a problem, imo.

And those wanting to own loads of assault guns and automatic rifles for self-defence: what do you do if you get attacked with a gang-owned mortar launcher, or an RPG? Is that your logic - that then you want a radar-based anti-missile system installed on your roof, or what? Do you sleep in a bunker? Do you claim the right by the example of the aircraft attacks of 9/11 to own your pirvate SAM-launcher in your garden? - The discussion of why owning bigger and bigger guns "for self-protection" is often so easily reaching into the realm of absurdity. For your information: a skilled shooter can kill a person with a soft-powered precision air-pistol. He only needs to aim well for the weak spots of the body.

Assaultguns for self-defence. Daß ich nicht lache.

Where would he have done it? yes, it is possible in Germany to obtain wapons illegally, but you need the contacts within the criminal establishment to get one. It's not an easy task, as guns are not floating around en masse just so even there. And this kiddo, shy and insecure as he obviously was from al I ready from this case by now, I have a very hard time imagening him going out to talk to some die hard criminals. Armed robbery and comparable armed crimes are rare, reflecting the lack of weapons circling around.

There were some indicators that caught my eye on this tragedy. Now these are just indicators and hindsight is 20/20. And these are my opinions only.

I have not read anything about how the kid got ahold of the weapons. Since there has been no reporting of him breaking in to any gun safe, I am assuming, absent of any other information, that these guns were unsecured.

That is something to be concerned with. A 17 year old should not love playing with weapons in the cellar. A gun is not to be played with. A gun is to be used in a responsible manner, not played with in a cellar. Why weren't these guns locked up or the kid under parental supervision?

Another indicator. There is nothing noteworthy about a person who has a naturally aggressive personality, nor is there anything noteworthy about a person who has a relaxed almost shy personality. However when you have someone who goes to these extremes when in private and public, that should be an indicator that something may be the matter with the kid. Something that probably needs to be looked into by a health professional.

As with many of these cases, I look squarely at the parents. An adult gun owner has the RESPONSIBILITY to ensure that his or her weapons are safe and pose no risks to the public. This means locking them away, not hiding them away.

Why did the parents enable this kid to have unsupervised access to these weapons?

We have a kid with extremes in personalities depending on his environment who loves to play with firearms. We also have parents who evidently failed to take the precautions to secure their weapons (I have not heard anything about the kid breaking into any gun safe or anything). Add to this mix a kid with some emotional problems and it is recipe for tragedy.

I understand that Germany has some pretty strict gun laws. Gun laws don't seem to do much when you have irresponsible gun owners.

The problem is not guns and not gun owners. The problem is irresponsible gun owners with guns.

How many families were destroyed simply because these parents were irresponsible (assuming that the guns were not secured)?

Because the father choose not to collect stamps but choose to collect guns. I hope society is not at the point where our hobbies can be dictated to us. :)

He might have turned to something else, like pipe bombs or other simple IEDs. Guns aren't the cause, they just make it easy. Availability of guns also isn't a key factor either, guns were plenty available in the 40's - 80's in the US.

His last name was Kretschmer, hope he's not related to 'Silent-Otto'.

Like someone else said, who's to say he wouldn't have just built some pipe bombs or other IEDs?

Also, finding contacts within the criminal establishment isn't very hard - certainly not as you're implying. Hence, the world's rampant drug trade. Oh, and black market arms trade.

In any case, this kid was determined enough to shoot up a school. To think that said determination doesn't cross itself over to gaining the means by which to do so is delusional.

Tools of death are not like any other item, and I have a problem with claiming it "freedom" to collect them like any other items for a hobby. They are not. A firearm is a firearm, and this guy owns 15. A firearm cannot be used for surgery. You cannot drill holes into the wall to hang up a picture, nor can you use it to learn about chemistry, to chop trees in your garden, calculate your taxes, tell your girl that you love her, or bring you from here to there as a tool of transportation. By design, a firearm and a weapon is meant to kill, and that is all it does. It's a tool of death, and all talking about deterrences does not change that, but only leads to an easyminded and craeless attitude towards using these tools (or even launch whole wars carelessly). Making that a hobby, an item of excessive interest, is something that tells something about the mind having that interest. A fascination for weapons is something that is neither desirable, nor is it healthy. It is intersted in death, and in how to destroy life. Owning a whole collection of weapons for sports or hobby only - that you cannot describe as a need coming from the sports. Man, I own two swords myself, one was a gift, the other I bought before. My father is sports shooter, but only owns two firearms of two different callibres that he practices with, and for some time only he owned a third one. Also a ranger and a hunter would not need 15 different guns.

I also refuse to accept a general freedom to buy and collect any given drugs. Poisons. Explosives. Freedom and the claim for freedom - has limits as long as you do not live alone on the planet. Where you live in a social community with others, your freedom has limits, necessarily. Unlimited freedom withion a communal context can only be gotten at the price of egoism and anarchy -and the conflict coming from that, inevitably.

You are making your own inference here. By design a firearm is designed to propel its bullet explosively down the barrel.

While it is common to use a gun to kill people, one can't make the claim that this is "all it does". It is one purpose, albeit a common purpose, but hardly "all that it does".

What a horrible hobby. Swords are designed to kill and maim people. Truly the only reason a person would own a sword is that they intend to kill someone as they serve no other design purpose.

A sword cannot be used for surgery. You cannot drill holes into the wall to hang up a picture, nor can you use it to learn about chemistry, to chop trees in your garden, calculate your taxes, tell your girl that you love her, or bring you from here to there as a tool of transportation.

When it is applied to your hobby it sounds kinda silly don't it? :)

[qoute] Also a ranger and a hunter would not need 15 different guns. [/quote]

But a collector may. A collector is probably not going to collect 15 of the exact same firearm, now will they?

Who decides how many is too many? You? Me? the government? <shudder> An irresponsible parent with a wacko kid with one unsecured gun is more of a threat to society than a responsible parent with 100 guns.

See it is not the guns that is the issue. It is the human.

However, as a supporter of freedom, I fully respect and honour your personal decisions and opinions concerning firearms. I hope that you have the same respect and honour towards the responsible gun owners.

I am sure we both have the same disdain for irresponsible gun owners... especially when innocent people get hurt.

<actually disdain is way too polite a word concerning MY feelings>

Maybe its different to me having a little military behind me. But I have no issues with firearms. The old cliche of 'guns don't kill people, people kill people' is 100% true. Like someone else posted, guns give the criminal the potential to increase the number of victims.

15 seems an excessive number of weapons to keep in the home. To own? not necessarily. But excessive to keep in the family home.

By the sounds of it, the parents did some things right, and others wrong. Right, they trained the kid in the safe handling of firearms. wrong, in that they let him work with weapons alone.

A ban to restrict firearm ownership won't help. All it does is take away people's passion. What needs to be implemented is regular psychological testing of firearm licence holders. Annual, perhaps.

Still, this won't help stem the tide of illegally owned firearms. What will start helping that is severe punishments. Let the courts make it known that illegal possession of firearms is a serious, criminal offence and will be punished with 10 or 15 years, non-parole.

Again.
The biggest pattern in these killings over the years is that they are young males unable to get laid.:salute:
What about the US killing today, the same?
I also would put my biggest blame on the violence and porn that children are exposed of.

The rejections, bullying and resulting repressed anger is nothing new but the reaction and responses are now influenced by these.
The shooters usually lack social interaction skills and harbour ideas of their superior intellect over others, like this German kid.
Its all part of the same defencive reaction.
Some angry young men join Nazis or Antifa, some start shooting by themself.

So the solutions have to be found in the homes and schools.
The exposure to violent entertainments at young age should be made harder.
I would include yearly psychological tests in schools and make it mandatory that parents attend regular parent/teacher meetings.

This would prevent more school shootings than gun laws, i can promise.
But most importantly it would save much more lives not lost in suicides, drug addictions etc. that are also often the result of the same reasons.

Well, so far only kids who had access to weapons started shootings. No one possesed an ilegal weapon. Given the rather small number of gun owners in Germany it is odd that ALL amok kids came out of gun owner families.
There hasn't been a single case of a non gun owner kid to do such a massacre.

So you see, obviously they don't try to get ileagal weapons or build IEDs.
I think one thing that is important is that those kids can get their hands on guns easily.
I believe that the knowledge of having power (a gun) available makes people to think about using them.

But changing gunlaws over here is something different than changing gun laws in the US. If anyone has a gun then I surely have one too just to be "safe". Here in Germany it is quite unusual that a burglar is armed with a firearm. Therefore no need to have one yourself.
I think it is also quite futile to try to order anything like gun restriction in a country that is already full of weapons.

What'S the intention of that? Doing the washup in the kitchen? Educate your kids?

Let'S not split hairs. A scalpel can be used to kill, top cut vegetables, to do surgery, or as a screw driver. A firearms: shoots to kill.

but it is. You cannot use it for anything else, and as long as you do not load soft rubber bullets, the idea of a firearm is to be a lethal thing. Inetnion or not, that'S what it is. And if people have the inention to kill, they would nevertheless find it harder without firearms available. Every idiot can pull trigger and kill even from a distance of many meters. with a club or a knife, or bare hands - it is something different. Yiu need to come close. You see into the other's eyes. You expose yourself to more risk, the closer you come.

It is silly. my mentor and Zen teacher was a japanese, and indeed his ancestors had been Samurais, he claimed. He played as a colleague with my father in the same orchestra in berlin, in the 80s. I got his sword because his son died and he had no more members of his family left to give it to, which was a very tragic thing for him indeed. Before that, I bought one original sword from the time between the world wars and two wooden swords, becasue for years he also was my martial arts trainer. I am not a collector, and now I am stranded with one quite valuable ancient sword I am responsible for - but not having children or trainees myself.

Queer? But true.

As I said, I have probelms with the freedom to collect tools of modern warfare, modern assault guns and rapid firarms. Firearms like this are not like any other item to be collected. they do not collect to the usual hobby of collecting something. I also would not accept the right to collect grenades. Explosives. Poisons and drugs. Regarding civilians owning military firearms, assault guns, I wpould ban that completely. such weapons belong to the security and military services, but not into civilians' hands. For self protection, a pistol, a hunting rifle, a revolver is good enough.

But you still lock your door when leaving the house, safeguarding against the optimistic possibility that only reasonable people will realise that your door is open.

If you leave firearms to people, you leave the chance that they will be abused. and they will be abused. Take away the firearms, and it does not matter whether someone woudl abuse them or not - he can't abuse them, since they are not there.

Again, eventually I could accept permission for people living in checked and cofnrimed dangerous areas to own a pistol or a revolver for self-defence. But no grenades. no missile-launchers. No machine guns and no assault rifles. Being fascinated by them means to be fascinated by what kills, by what takes life, by what is in favour of death and what is against life. And that is simply sick. Some posts earlier I said we live in a culture that celebrates violance. It is a violant culture. And it is a sick culture, yes.

With the above limitations, yes.

Yes, sure, I take that as a given, else i would not even discuss it with you - there would be no use in doing so, then. ;)