Tuesday, September 23, 2008

College shooting in Finland

Nine dead and more wounded. The shooter tried to kill himself, but he survived. No other real details from this yet as the story is still breaking.

More to follow.

Update: The scumbag died, making the death toll ten. An interesting note:

After the shootings, he said, he heard students shouting. Police came about 10 minutes after they were called, Varmola said.

"It took two hours to get this situation ended," he said.

I don't know the laws in Finland, whether they insist on putting up those silly "Gun Free" signs like they do here in the US, but just like in the school shootings here the cops show up in the aftermath, not in time to save anyone. It is rumored that the several armored vehicles involved did not play a decisive role either.

The gunman bought the gun well before the shooting:
MTV-3's Foreign Editor Risto Puolimatka told CNN that Saari was also issued with a temporary gun license last month. It was the gunman's first license, Puolimatka said.
Waiting periods don't work. The gun was a semi-automatic pistol from what I can gather:
Forsberg said, "I heard several dozen rounds of shots. In other words, it was an automatic pistol.
The article likes to point out that Finland has more gun ownership than much of Europe. As much as you will hear about guns and school shootings, know that the most fatal school massacre in US history was committed with a bomb. The most fatal act of terrorism in the US was committed with commercial airliners hijacked using boxcutters; the most fatal act of domestic terrorism in US history was committed with a bomb; the second most fatal spree killing in modern world history was committed using a shotgun, a sword, and an axe, the first was committed with a rifle and some grenades. Again, to quote R. Lee. Ermey ". .it is the hard heart that kills."

Update: Blogger Stålhandske in comments notes that the weapon used in the killing was a Walther P22 in .22 Long Rifle caliber. This is the same weapon that Cho used to kill at Virginia Tech. I have this very pistol, and while it's a quality gun it's very sensitive to the type of ammo used, and it's not just mine; several of my friends have this gun as well. There is nothing special about it; it only comes with ten round magazines. To my knowledge they don't even make larger capacity magazines for it.

3 comments:

Stålhandske said...

According to the finnish police they questioned the guy yesterday because someone had seen the videos he had uploaded to youtube (account suspended) but they released him, not enough evidence to hold him.

Stålhandske said...

Here you can see the scumbag in some of his videos that was up on youtube.
He's using a A Walther P22.

http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/nyheter/utrikes/article3377118.ab

There's no "Gun free zone" signs but there's a law that forbids carrying firearms into the school.

The police showed up later than the fire brigade and the ambulance.
There were some MP's around with their APC's
One seen here:
http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/nyheter/utrikes/article3374834.ab

Timeline goes,
10:47 the fire alarm goes off and the Scumbag goes in to a classroom and starts to open fire with his gun.

11:30 all the students have been evacuated.

Then he shot some rounds at the police before taking his life at 12:30


The police found a note in his pocket that said that he was a misantrope and that hated to whole human race and that the only solution was the use of firearms. "The solution is Walther"

It also said that he had planned the whole thing since 2002.


All this could have been stopped if the police (who actually had him, from the tip about the youtube videos) just had put some surveillance on him...

Anonymous said...

First of all: The police had only seen a video of Saari shootin at the shooting range. There was nothing illegal on the video. He put rest of his films on youtube after he was released.

Also: Most of the guns in Finland are hunting weapons, only licensed guns that you can get for "self defense" are tear gas cans and such (yes you need a license for that. Even worse you only get those if you are a security guard.).

Other weapons such as guns for target practise or "reservist guns" (semi auto assault rifles and pistols) are much rarer.

And after this shooting (2nd in a short time) we have people and politicians saying that all pistols should be taken away from civilians (few gun hobbyists said that cheap 22.cal pistols that look like "real" guns are more dangerous than olympic type pistols (worth over 1000€) so only those should be outlawd.)


I'd like to end this by saying that although I am a gun hobbyist and a hunter I admit that we don't need guns for self defence in Finland (just for hobbies), and I really am grateful of that. And although I am worried that shootings like this will become more commmon I still think we don't have to take away all of our guns (besides England has already shown how much outlawing guns helps) we just need better gun control.