Grief and shock in Austria’s second metropolis

There may be shock, disappointment and disbelief in Graz, after the worst capturing in trendy Austrian historical past left 11 folks useless, together with the gunman.

“We by no means may have imagined that this might have occurred right here, in our place. It is a unhappy day for the entire metropolis,” mentioned Reka, who lives near the varsity.

For a few years, Austria had been spared the ache of mass college shootings.

However that every one modified at about 10:00 on Tuesday when a former pupil ran amok at a secondary college within the Dreierschützengasse, near the principle station in Austria’s second largest metropolis.

Morning courses had been below manner when the assault came about. Some college students on the college would have been taking their ultimate exams.

It took police 17 minutes to carry the scenario below management.

By the point it was over six feminine victims and three males had died. Hours later, a seventh feminine sufferer, an grownup girl, died in hospital. A number of others stay in hospital, some with vital accidents.

The gunman, a 21-year-old Austrian citizen with two firearms, took his personal life on the college.

A former pupil who by no means handed his ultimate exams, he’s reported to have seen himself as a sufferer of bullying.

Native resident Reka instructed me she could not perceive how an assault like this might have occurred in her well-ordered metropolis.

“This space is quiet, protected and delightful,” she mentioned. “Persons are good, the varsity is nice.”

Austria’s President Alexander Van der Bellen mentioned: “This horror can’t be put into phrases. What occurred as we speak in a faculty in Graz, hits our nation proper within the coronary heart. These had been younger individuals who had their entire lives forward of them. A trainer who accompanied them on their manner.”

He mentioned there was “nothing at this second that may alleviate the ache that the dad and mom, grandparents, siblings and pals of these murdered are feeling”.

Austria’s Chancellor Christian Stocker, who rushed to the scene with the Inside Minister Gerhard Karner, known as it “a nationwide tragedy, that had shaken your complete nation.” He mentioned there have been no phrases to explain “the ache and grief that all of us – the entire of Austria – is feeling”.

Three days of mourning have been declared in Austria. Flags on the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, the place President van der Bellen has his workplace, will fly at half-mast.

Austria has some of the closely armed civilian populations in Europe, with an estimated 30 firearms per 100 individuals, in accordance with the Small Arms Survey, an unbiased analysis mission.

However college shootings listed here are uncommon. There have been just a few incidents over time which have concerned far fewer casualties:

• In 2018 a 19-year-old was shot by one other youth in Mistelbach, north of Vienna
• In 2012 in St Pölten, a pupil was shot useless by his father
• In 1997, in Zöbern, a 15-year-old killed a trainer and severely injured one other
• And in 1993 a 13-year-old boy in Hausleiten severely injured the pinnacle trainer after which killed himself.

Austria’s most violent gun assault lately came about within the coronary heart of Vienna in November 2020. 4 folks had been killed and 22 injured when a convicted jihadist ran via the centre of town opening hearth, earlier than he was finally shot by police.

Machine weapons and pump motion weapons are banned, whereas revolvers, pistols and semi-automatic weapons are allowed solely with official authorisation. Rifles and shotguns are permitted with a firearms licence or a sound searching licence, or for members of conventional capturing golf equipment.

The Graz gunman is known to have owned each firearms legally, and he had no prison document. One in all his weapons was purchased solely the day earlier than the assault, in accordance with one report.

Exterior the varsity, a younger man on a bicycle watched because the police allowed safety automobiles via the safety cordon spherical the varsity.

“It is horrific,” he instructed me. “That is my house. I am unable to perceive how so many individuals my age are useless. This should not occur right here.”