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Ten dead in Austria school shooting.

Tender Branson

DP Veteran
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Location
🇦🇹 Austria 🇦🇹
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Political Leaning
Progressive
Tender Branson:

What a senseless tragedy and all too common in this mad, mad world today where mass murder is becoming a deranged type of performance art. My condolences to the families and friends of the dead and wounded, to the people of Graz, to all Austrians and to all who value life over death.

This is sickness and evil wrapped into one ego-driven trend of destruction.

Madness.

Be well and be safe.
Evilroddy.
 
Last edited:
10 dead now confirmed (8 students, 1 teacher and the perpetrator - who killed himself).

30 more are injured, 7 of them critically and of these 7 there are 2 with life-threatening wounds and who might not make it.
 
Wow. So sorry to hear this. My sincere condolences to the families, and to the people of Austria.
 
A press conference was held, key points:

# of the 9 dead victims, 6 were female and 3 male.

# 12 victims are still in critical condition, so the death toll could rise.

# the dead perpetrator is a 21-year old former male student of the high school, who lived in the Graz-suburbs district and who owned both weapons he used legally (he had a valid firearm license). He used a handgun and a rifle in the attack. Since you have to be at least 21 years of age in Austria to get a firearm license, he didn't have the legal license and firearms for a long time. Maybe he bought it just a few weeks or months ago, for the attack. He also had no previous criminal record, otherwise he wouldn't have received a firearm license in the first place. You also have to pass a psychiatrist exam before getting the license.

# the perpetrator is of Austrian citizenship.

It seems kinda crazy to me that you would go to your former school and shoot up people there, especially if you are leaving that school at 18 and all your former bullies are also already out of that school (except former teachers).
 
Unfortunately psychopaths exist everywhere in the world.

I feel so bad for the victim's families.
 
Not sure what will now happen to the gun law here in Austria, which is already kinda strict.

They could tighten it further (like to an almost complete ban), but I am not a big fan of such measures, because even after such tragedies, a society must remain as liberal as possible and not restrictive.

I mean, the guy was without criminal records and had to pass a 1-hour psychiatrist evaluation before getting the license and firearm and during this assessment by the psychiatrist, several questions were asked and if you fail them, you don't get the license ...

The psychiatrist could have asked him about not graduating from his former school and the reasons behind it, but even if he/she did, the psychiatrist wouldn't have gotten a clue that he planned this or was unsuitable for guns. I guess so at least. The responsible psychiatrist for the attacker surely will question themselves now, but are they to blame ? Even the craziest killers often look and behave quite normal. While other, very psychologically impacted people often never commit any crime.
 
The dead female victims are all very young (aged 15).

The BORG school is identical to an American high school, where you start at 15 and graduate at 18 (usually, unless you repeat years).

The killed male victims were older, around 17-18.

One female victim was already shot dead outside the school, before the interior attack.

Police found a final letter of the perpetrator at his home.

He killed himself in the school bathroom, after only 10 minutes.

Police arrived also immediately after, but that was too late. They secured the whole school just 15 minutes after the first emergency call.
 
What a horrible tragedy.

Have they fully identified the perp yet?
 
slavablueberryjam said:
And just like that: Austria will successfully ban firearms to all. Like how a civilized nation should work.
Click to expand...

No, read my post above.

There might be a review about the gun law, but it's hard to see them fully banning private gun ownership as a result.

Germany for example has tightened its gun laws after several similar incidents, but not banned it completely.
 
The perpetrator did not sucessfully graduate from his former high school and he recently was unemployed becaue he was until today registered with the Austrian Labor Market Agency (= job seeking agency).

Also, the first name "Artur" - without an "h", like in "Arthur" - suggests that he might have been an Austrian with migrant background, because ethnic Austrians are usually "Arthur"s and not "Artur"s ... because that version is more common in Eastern Europe.

It will be seen where this guy was actually from background-wise when his last name gets revealed at some point. With the last name, you can more precisely say if he's a native Austrian or some guy with a migration background.
 
Sad to hear.
 
Picture of the perpetrator Artur A. (21):



Father is an Armenian.

Mother is of Austrian citizenship (no word about migration background).

He lived together with his mother and brother, but without his father (had separated from his mother).

By neighbours, the killer was described as "shy, but nice, introverted and impossible to imagine that he would carry out an attack like this".
 
A deep dive into his posting history is almost surely going to provide a clue as to his motives for this terrible act.

We will undoubtedly hear a lot more in the coming days about what circumstances in this young man's life were serving to cause him to kill people before enacting his own suicide.

I always have a problem coming to grips with males deciding to kill others before performing their planned suicide. Husbands/fathers, whether separated or divorced, opting to kill their entire family before taking their own lives is one of the mysteries to me. Take a walk into the wilderness and feed the wildlife if you must, but leave innocent parties out of your already planned exit.

If you're unhappy with your life, become anonymous, book a flight to somewhere else and pump gas or stock shelves for awhile, until you hopefully get a grip.

I just don't get it.
 
There are now first calls here in Austria by political parties for a new law to completely ban private gun ownership, as a result of this tragedy:

The far-left Communist Party, of which the city's mayor is from, has called for a private firearm ban in Austria today.

The left-wing Green Party supported this call from the Commies.

Together, they have about 15% support here in Austria.

The far-right (Trumpian) FPÖ meanwhile is categorically opposed to a private firearms ban, saying that the current Austrian firearm law is already one of the strictest and nothing could have prevented this.

The 3 centrist government parties of Austria (the conservative ÖVP, the center-left Social Democrats and the market-liberal NEOS) say that "now is the time to grief, not the time for politics". There are voices for and against this in the 3 parties.
 
This is how events unfolded yesterday (everything was so quick, also the emergency units):

Translated from Austrian-German to English.

 
The things that matter to the OP are back at the center of the matter: Restricting immigration, supporting nativism and presenting far right ideas as the common sense approach.

You can all take your kumbaya and sit down now. The curious Helmut act is oveeeeeer.

Weeeeeeeee.

 
A couple other things that came to light today:

# in his suicide note, the perpetrator asked that his "cat should be looked after and cared for"

# there were 9 dead students (6 girls and 3 boys, aged 14-17) and a 59-year old teacher (a woman)

# among the dead girls, one was a direct neighbor of the perpetrator, living in the same apartment complex above him. Police are now looking into this, if she rejected or bullied him etc. etc.

# at least 3 of the 10 killed were Muslims

# of the 10 killed, 9 had Austrian citizenship + 1 Polish citizen

# of the 10 killed, at least 2 were of Bosnian origin, 1 of Kosovo origin and 1 Pole
 
The Austrian President, Alexander Van der Bellen (from the leftist Green Party), also wants to tighten the gun law now:

Translation from Austrian-German to English

 
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