Here we go again..another school shooting

[B]

How could this be prevented from happening again? Could it be prevented?

I'm not saying it would be a waste of time to TRY and prevent stuff like this, preferably at as early a stage as possible, on the contrary - but... unless we agree to go for the Big Brother model really big time, it's not possible to control everything and everyone... and who in his right mind would like that... so, sadly, no-one can give such guarantees that "it won't happen again".

Unfortunately I agree that these kind of events could only unleashed the support for more BigBrother style of surveillance. Just a few minutes ago, I was told that it seems like the Finnish police would consider total surveillance on similar videos that would be/are posted online. They may start considering questioning every single individual about their posted videos. Well, they questioned the guy... and he still did it. Maybe total surveillance is not the best answer.I don't think that's a reasonable answer. We don't want a society like in the USA where neighbours tip the police on their neighbours (so I've heard).

Yet again, what about what goes on inside of one's head? Ok, i guess this is too far fetched. But not as total surveillance.

[onkko]

Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

How profound...

Naturally there is the small issue that .... People with guns can kill lots of people in record time.

http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myyrmannin ... %C3%A4hdys

Bombs do that even better, and notice that bomb was self made with common stuff you can buy from shop...

[sinikala]

if you make it people too easy to use it, they will use it as a misuse of power. Less guns, knifes etc. means less opportunities to kill. It is absurd that somebody has 10 guns at home because it would not be the first time that his or her children will use these guns for example

This is ridiculous! It's like saying that spoons make people fat! I was in Bosnia trying to help those people get along with each other. I talked with many people both Serbian and Muslim who had the same opinion of "if you take our guns away we will fight with sticks and rocks untill all those other bas****s are dead!"

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume that you're not a total idiot. There is a rather huge difference between two factions in a civil war, and a sociopathic kid in an otherwise peaceful society.

Taking away the guns from the former will most likely result in them obtaining more guns, c.f. IRA and the nice people at NORAID.

Taking the possibility of access to guns away from the latter will result in a miserable sociopathic boy who may top himself by hanging, overdose, end up in jail or just grumble his way through it all and end up like the rest of us. It won't generally end up with 9 dead innocents.

Does this make any sense to you?

[EP]

Surely there is enough information from all the shootings in America to be able to figure out what's going on and how to prevent it.

If that was the case, the school shootings in the US would have stopped years ago. There have been 44 deadly school shootings since 1996 there.

I checked the worldwide school shootings since 1996:

USA 44
Germany 3
Finland 2
Sweden 1
Scotland 1
Holland 1
Canada 1
Argentina 1
Yemen 1
Bosnia-Herzegovina 1

And I just watched the video: A nerdy looking young man with bad hair-do and no fashion sense. I can imagine that he has never had a girlfriend. All he would have needed is a girlfriend. "Nobody loves me" is a bad state of mind if it goes on for a long time.

[onkko]

Just found this http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/2656875.stm

"If guns are outlawed," an American bumper sticker warns, "only outlaws will have guns." With gun crime in Britain soaring in the face of the strictest gun control laws of any democracy, the UK seems about to prove that warning prophetic.

And i agree on that, if you know right people you can get a gun. I could make few calls and get 9mm pistol and ammo from people who dont ask for permit.

And more about banning firearms in finland http://www.halla-aho.com/scripta/inter_arma_eng.html

[Kupcake]

by EP on Tue Sep 23, 2008 5:21 pm
Surely there is enough information from all the shootings in America to be able to figure out what's going on and how to prevent it.


If that was the case, the school shootings in the US would have stopped years ago.

44!!! Good grief, i had no idea it was that many! I would have thought that with that many incidents there would be some information to be collected, some policies changed and some help for parents of teens. The teen years are so tough - for kids and parents - and yet there is sooooooo much more information and support for parents of little kids. I don't think it's wrong to have information for parents of little kids, but gosh, isn't it obvious how devastating the actions of a troubled teen can be? I've certainly been through times where i really needed some information / support and there is none to be had here until the damage has already been done. I can't help wondering if the parents of this boy might have looked for some professional help - would there have been some of any worth to find??

[onkko]

Sure it's sad that 9 people have died, but until people accept that having no guns is safer than having some guns, then this sort of thing can happen.

And how that "no guns" is possible? And no, Limiting gun ownership doesnt make country safer.

http://www.nra.fi/arkisto/070806-kates.html

Many people think that nations with more firearms will have more murder and that banning firearms will reduce murder and other violence. This canard does not comport, however, with criminological research in the U.S. or elsewhere. An extensive study that one of us (Kates) recently published with Canadian criminologist Gary Mauser confirms the negative results of two large-scale international studies over the past 15 years. ("Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide: A Review of International Evidence," Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol. 30, pages 651-694.) These studies compared data from a large number of nations around the world. There were no instances of nations with high gun ownership having higher murder rates than nations with low gun ownership. If
anything it was the reverse, for reasons discussed below.

[PenelopeH]

Cloudberry wrote

I'm pretty sure my cousin works at that hospital - I didn't realise Kauhajoki was so close to Tampere

It's not really that close. It's about 250kms. I don't know why they took him there, Seinäjoki is much closer and they do surgery there. They did on me anyway, but I didn't have a bullet in my head.
My in-laws live in Kauhajoki. That's where I'm going for Christmas. Very sad and shocking thing to happen in such a small quiet place.

[onkko]

Cloudberry wrote

I'm pretty sure my cousin works at that hospital - I didn't realise Kauhajoki was so close to Tampere

It's not really that close. It's about 250kms. I don't know why they took him there, Seinäjoki is much closer and they do surgery there. They did on me anyway, but I didn't have a bullet in my head.
My in-laws live in Kauhajoki. That's where I'm going for Christmas. Very sad and shocking thing to happen in such a small quiet place.

Tampere has "yliopistollinen sairaala" what is better to things like that, shooter died anyway http://www.iltalehti.fi/uutiset/2008092 ... 8_uu.shtml

[sinikala]

Just found this http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/2656875.stm

"If guns are outlawed," an American bumper sticker warns, "only outlaws will have guns." With gun crime in Britain soaring in the face of the strictest gun control laws of any democracy, the UK seems about to prove that warning prophetic.

The 2003 article on the BBC website which you quote was by Joyce L Malcolm Author and academic.

Joyce Lee Malcolm, professor of history, is author of Guns and Violence: The English Experience, published in June 2002. Professor of history, Bentley College, US

must be true then. Since then there has been a change in the UK law with the Violent Crime reduction act of 2006.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7056245.stm

"This made it an offence to manufacture, import or sell realistic imitation guns; doubled the maximum sentence for carrying an imitation gun to 12 months, and made it a crime to fire an air weapon beyond the boundary of any premises. It also increased the age limit for buying or possessing an air weapon from 17 to 18"

And i agree on that, if you know right people you can get a gun. I could make few calls and get 9mm pistol and ammo from people who dont ask for permit.

Well in Britian, I couldn't. Which perhaps illustrates the point that when there are lots of guns, accessibility is easier when than when there are less guns. Even you should be able to do the maths.

And how that "no guns" is possible? And no, Limiting gun ownership doesnt make country safer.

Not limiting gun ownership... banning it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7118332.stm

Practically "no guns" isn't possible, not whilst people like you want to cling onto the "right" to have guns. Otherwise it's quite simple.

[luomu]

This is going to happen again, and again, because Finland hosts an ever-growing number of pretty phucked-up teens/young adults with very dangerous egocentric minds.

[mrshourula]

I recently read a book by American author Malcolm Gladwell, who has written a book called The Tipping Point. It's a book about change and looking at change in new ways. One thing he writes about is "social epidemics" and he speculates that it is possible to look at these mass shootings as a social epidemic. I think if we want to figure out how to stop these kinds of things, we have to look at them differently. It's no different in Finland than the USA, after the initial shock wears off, the arguments over gun control take over. To me the argument isn't gun control (although I am a supporter of that). Clearly lots of people in the world have guns but it is only a few (and they are almost all -- if not all--young men) go over the edge. And in many cases, it is found that they had an interest/obsession with some previous mass shooting (Columbine comes up often). I don't think Mr. Gladwell offers a specific answer to ending mass shootings but I think his ideas offer the opportunity for us to think about them differently and perhaps find a way to stop them. Arguing about gun ownership isn't going to do it.

Here is a short excerpt from his Tipping Point Blog: http://www.gladwell.com/tippingpoint/

4. Why do you think the epidemic example is so relevant for other kinds of change? Is it just that it's an unusual and interesting way to think about the world?

No. I think it's much more than that, because once you start to understand this pattern you start to see it everywhere. I'm convinced that ideas and behaviors and new products move through a population very much like a disease does. This isn't just a metaphor, in other words. I'm talking about a very literal analogy. One of the things I explore in the book is that ideas can be contagious in exactly the same way that a virus is. One chapter, for example, deals with the very strange epidemic of teenage suicide in the South Pacific islands of Micronesia. In the 1970's and 1980's, Micronesia had teen suicide rates ten times higher than anywhere else in the world. Teenagers were literally being infected with the suicide bug, and one after another they were killing themselves in exactly the same way under exactly the same circumstances. We like to use words like contagiousness and infectiousness just to apply to the medical realm. But I assure you that after you read about what happened in Micronesia you'll be convinced that behavior can be transmitted from one person to another as easily as the flu or the measles can. In fact, I don't think you have to go to Micronesia to see this pattern in action. Isn't this the explanation for the current epidemic of teen smoking in this country? And what about the rash of mass shootings we're facing at the moment--from Columbine through the Atlanta stockbroker through the neo-Nazi in Los Angeles?

[Jukka Aho]

I didn't realise Kauhajoki was so close to Tampere

It's not really that close. It's about 250kms. I don't know why they took him there, Seinäjoki is much closer and they do surgery there.

I read somewhere they are treating different kinds of injuries in different hospitals. (Some of the victims/patients were also taken to Vaasa, apparently.)

[Karhunkoski]

I could make few calls and get 9mm pistol and ammo from people who dont ask for permit.

Does anyone know if the weapon used was the .22 pistol he had recently acquired (legally)?

(Reason being that I just read a report that talked about "automatic fire", which could suggest a more powerful, non-registered weapon)

[mrshourula]

I could make few calls and get 9mm pistol and ammo from people who dont ask for permit.

Does anyone know if the weapon used was the .22 pistol he had recently acquired (legally)?

(Reason being that I just read a report that talked about "automatic fire", which could suggest a more powerful, non-registered weapon)

Police Let Shooter Keep Gun
Published 23.09.2008, 17.35

Police questioned suspected Kauhajoki gunman Matti Saari on Monday because of violent videos he had posted on the website YouTube, showing himself shooting a gun at a firing range. However no further action was taken.


According to National Police Commissioner Mikko Paatero, the man did not apparently directly threaten anyone so there were no grounds for further steps.

Police first received information about the videos on Friday, but could not reach the man until Monday. He was then questioned about the videos. Police apparently also searched his home.

Saari had received a temporary permit in August for a .22 calibre handgun, his first gun.

However the chief inspector in charge of case decided that there were no grounds for suspending the gun license or confiscating the weapon. Paatero and Interior Minister Anne Holmlund have promised a thorough investigation of the case.

"One would imagine that the gun or the license were not taken away because he did not threaten anyone in the internet video," Paatero told YLE.

YLE