Just picked up on this on the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7936817.stm

I naively thought this sort of thing didn't happen in Europe.

It reminds me about Virginia Technikon shooting many years ago...

Here is more news in German paper: http://www.spiegel.de/international/...612612,00.html

Unfortunately "goin' postal" is very international. Surely hope the economy has reach the bottom and will start to go up. Otherwise we may see more of these tragedies.

Cheers
John

I was just thinking about the same... the people get too stressed and desparate having sometimes few screws loosened in their heads... Pressure is mounting and world wide depression could be a source of it...

Did something similar not happen in Belgium a few months back. And before that, in Jokela, Finland, where the kid went and posted Youtube videos just prior to the attack. And not to forget the Dunblane Massacre.

Wherever you find guns (pretty much everywhere), and maladjusted people (also pretty much everywhere) you have the potential for this sort of thing. The potential just grows when it's children who have easy access to firearms like in the states.

Also in Alabama:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7936382.stm

Do you really think this sort of thing has anything to do with the economy? I personally don't to be honest. Bad things happen sometimes because they happen. I wish they wouldn't but there is not always a root cause except that there are some nuts out there. I don't think people are any nuttier because the economy is bad or good.

I think there is the point there though. I have heard of the so called conservative families where the husband was the only bread-winner. As soon as he lost his family sustaining only job, he would return home pull the firearm and wait for his spouse and children... no more details at this point... and eventually turned the gun into himself!

As it might not have anything to do with crazy rampage, however it shows how the human psycho operates

I don't disagree that stress can cause things like that - every nut has something that cracks them. I just don't see economic stress as a motivator in the case mentioned at the start. It usually something more mundane, like some girl refusing to date him or being bullied.

I think I know what you mean.... Wasn't one of the above a motif of the shooting rampage in Virginia TECH massacre?

I don't have the facts about this case - but from the gitgo it doesn't appear economy related. However....that's why i see in my crystal ball. Let's hope it is defective.

The shooter was a teenager, just like in the cases in Belgium and Finland. The same in most US high school shootings and the one in Erfurt, Germany, a couple of years ago. The reason has never been money, job or economy: They are teenagers, they naturally struggle to find their way into life and need some respect and friends/a partner. Sometimes it goes wrong, like the guys in the black leather coats at Colombine. Same in Erfurt: he was the guy nobody liked at school and got bullied for years.
I cannot explain what it takes to run amok, but I am sure that the kid did not kill 17 for money. The black fight dress looks like a copy of former cases (and the pile of guns his parents had at home made stuff easier).

If this news report was to be believed, it appears to be a lethal combination of meds / depression, violent computer games and the access to real guns ( 30 Airsoft guns and 14 others registered to his dad ).

most probably bad music as well...

Common, this is so much of a stereotype. When I was 17, I gamed a lot as well and listened to music adults would not like. Most teenagers do so. There is a lobby that waits for every case like this to immediately scream up and make something illegal... before games it used to be VHS movies and before that "Rock & Roll records". In the 19th century the same type of people blamed everything on "cheap and disturbing" new print media - novels - the kids should read decent literature instead.

So why do some kids run amok? I do not know, but there is one huge difference between my home and his: The difference is that my dad did not have a 9mm under his pillow and did not stack 4600 rounds of ammo (!) illegally in our house... according to the news, the boy got a medical record of having depressions. When he was tested for the army service, he got it clearly in his record and was sent to a civil hospital for consultation. Since he is underage, his parents have to be aware of this. How can you then leave a loaded gun around?

Now the dad faces a charge of "fahrlässige Tötung" in 15 cases...
http://www.netzeitung.de/vermischtes/1300197.html

Me and some friends was talking about this on saturday we 2 of us also blamed violent video games and 2 didn`t. What makes me mad is that some parents will buy there small children violent games that are meant for over 18`s, a few years ago my husband asked someone what he should buy for there son for his birthday and she told my husband a name of a video game, we had a look at it in the store and i couldn`t believe what she wanted us to buy for her 11yr old son i refused to buy it, but he got it anyway the mother bought it for him. I will stick with Mario Kart for me and the kids.

The shooting is very upsetting, to think you send your children to school and this happens being a parent myself i am very upset about this, and my thoughts and prayers go to there familys and friends.

How so very true as I recall the 1996 Port Arthur incident in Tassie which subsequently led to a buy back of guns, not sure if it was a good thing or not.

I come from a country where illegal possession of guns or live ammo ( licensing is so very difficult and requires connections ) meant going straight to the gallows almost always - the police and military do not favour competition

Source

My only input on this is a conversation I had with a Staff Sergeant in charge of training recruits. He said that the most difficult thing in the training is to get a recruit to point, shoot and kill without thinking or remorse etc. For him the shoot 'em all video games were a godsend, as the recruits who were playing these games could do this without any problem.

Cheers

Jim

... which could be translated as "negligent manslaughter" if anyone cares to know. I read too many John Grisham novels, I guess.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there is quite a difference between shooting in a game or at carton figures compared to even aim a gun at a living being....

I still blame Marylin Manson.....

So I thought until I talked to this guy. I had no reason to think he was BS'ing me.

Cheers

Jim