Posted on 03/12/2009 7:13:16 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Two shooting massacres in Germany and the US this week have reignited the debate on gun control, but while Europe has in the past been been ready to tighten already tough restrictions the US remains more resistant to change.
Germany was in shock yesterday after a teenage gunman shot 15 people near Stuttgart in one of the worst incidents of its kind in the country.
In the US on Tuesday a man went on a shooting spree in Alabama after setting his mother on fire in her house. The 28-year-old, Michael McLendon, killed 10 people including five family members.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said the attack marked a "day of sorrow" for the whole country. In the US, where such massacres are all too common, Barack Obama, the president, made no statement.
During the presidential campaign Mr Obama trod a fine line between stressing the need to do more to prevent criminals from obtaining weapons while reassuring gun-loving voters he would respect the sacrosanct second amendment of the constitution, which protects the right to bear arms.
Mrs Merkel said in Berlin: "It is unimaginable that in just seconds, pupils and teachers were killed - it is an appalling crime."
A 17-year-old, clad in combat clothing, entered a school in Winnenden shortly after lessons began and fired indiscriminately, killing nine pupils and three teachers. After fleeing the scene, he killed a passer-by.
Later, two more bystanders, as well as the assailant, were killed after a shoot-out with police.
German media reported that the assailant's father was a member of a shooting club and kept a collection of at least 16 registered weapons in the family home. The attack re-awakened painful memories of a massacre in 2002 at a high school in the eastern city of Erfurt, when 16 people were killed.
The Erfurt attack sparked an unprecedented bout of public soul-searching in Germany and prompted the government to tighten gun ownership laws, by raising the minimum age to buy major firearms from 18 to 21.
A public outcry in 2007 forced Wolfgang Schäuble, interior minister, to drop plans to reverse this higher age limit, which had been proposed to bring German law into harmony with other European Union countries. "Safety comes first," Mr Schäuble said at the time.
The fact that tighter German rules failed to prevent yesterday's killings meant that politicians were unwilling to rule out further restrictions.
But Wolfgang Bosbach, deputy head of Ms Merkel's Christian Democratic Union parliamentary party, told the Financial Times it was "far too early" to talk about a political response.
Despite previous incidents, many Germans remain sceptical of introducing US-style security, including metal detectors and video surveillance into the country's traditionally liberal schooling system.
"The state cannot give a guarantee that nothing like this will happen again," Mr Bosbach said and warned against turning schools into "high-security wings".
Dietrich Oberwittler, a criminologist at a Max Planck law institute, agreed that politicians could do little more to prevent these kinds of attack, noting that state police had executed a specially designed rapid response plan but were not able to arrive soon enough.
"Guns laws are already very strict," he said. "It is extremely hard to recognise these people in advance."
While the Alabama shooting temporarily displaced the economic crisis on US television, gun-control advocates were not confident that it would help Mr Obama engineer any significant changes on gun ownership.
Ladd Everitt, communications director at the Washington-based Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said the president had shown little interest in pushing Congress to make changes that would outrage the powerful National Rifle Association.
German killings
Feb 2002 Former student at a school in Freising, Bavaria, kills three before taking his own life
April 2002 In Erfurt, eastern Germany, a 19-year-old kills 12 teachers, a secretary, two pupils and a policeman, before killing himself
Nov 2006 An 18-year-old former pupil storms a school in the western town of Emsdetten. He wounds 11 before killing himself
We have been killing each other from the first days that walked out of the caves,
We will go on killing each other long after we have returned to the caves.
Guns just take some of the work out of it.
Never mind that Europe turned its back on Christianity and embraced socialism which teaches that people are nothing and the state is everything.
“And how many were killed by the German Government in WWI and WWII? Tens of Millions? Tackle the big government nanny/marxist/totalitarian problems and round up the socialists before you try to round up innocent gun owners.”
Probably one of the best posts I have read on this site in a long time. And could you imagine if EVEN ONE Republican would have the guts to make this point aggressively the next time gun control comes up? Would force the history lesson into the mainstream and force some perspective. Brilliant post, MtnClimber.
Brilliant!
Why didn't we think of that before! Let's just pass laws to make it illegal to shoot people and this will never happen again! Oh, thank you for starting the "Just don't shoot people!" movement! /s
Said Jim Taggart...
None of the current crop of Republicans has the brass to bring it up.
“gee more gun control in germany? when did that last occur?”
I’d say it’s pretty tight right now. I don’t think you’ll see another Hitler, though.
I’m so sorry, but a gun by itself cannot kill anyone. We don’t need gun control, we need NUT control.
I have looked at this site time and time again over the years. Still, no assault weapon violence!...
http://www.assaultweaponwatch.com/
it’s not just this incident that worries me. personally, i think the e.u. might dissolve within a year. there are too many diplomatic and economic conflicts between e.u. countries to say that a “hitler” might not come to power. imho
Vultures exploiting murder victims for political ends.
I'd easily wager that Mexico and Parts of Europe wouldn't be anywhere near as bad as they are now if they had gun ownership they way most of the US does.
The pattern is there for all to see. In each and every place where gun ownership or possession is the most restrictive, violent crime is MUCH MUCH higher. There is no denying it.
If passing a law restricting guns seems like a good idea, wouldn’t passing a law prohibiting murder be a better idea?
As well it should! If it were easier to legally carry a firearm in this country more people would be armed and these massacres would be even more rare than they are today.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Nope, bunch of pussies, across the board.
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