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<![CDATA[Hamburg shooting]]>

“Lax gun laws” blamed for Hamburg shooting

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I recently took a look at gun control laws in Germany. It was because of the Hamburg shooting. I knew there would be a discussion of the gun laws on the books as well as calls for new ones and I wanted to be familiar with what’s already in place.

What they’ve got is pretty extensive, too. Mandatory storage laws, psychological evaluations before purchasing a gun, a licensing process that requires applicants to show a necessity for buying a gun, and age restrictions.

Frankly, they’ve got more rules in place than any state in the US could ever hope to get through.

Their gun laws are anything but lax.

Yet, in the wake of the Hamburg shooting, many are blaming lax gun laws.

Gun laws in Germany, where weapon ownership is among the highest in Europe, could be further tightened after last week’s mass shooting in which seven people, including an unborn child, were killed in a Jehovah’s Witness hall in Hamburg.

The attack has thrown up the perennial question of whether the various parts of the country’s federal system are working together, and strengthened the hand of those in the governing coalition who are seeking stronger gun controls.

…

But people are now asking why the specialist force is not deployed every day. And in a country whose fragmented political system is often a cause for complaint, a reckoning is coming over Hamburg’s weapons control authority’s response to an anonymous letter sent two months ago about [the gunman’s] mental health.

On 7 February, officers visited [the killer] at his flat in west Hamburg but gave him just a verbal warning after finding a loose bullet on top of the safe in which his gun and ammunition were supposed to be stored. The city’s health services seem to have had no involvement in the unannounced visit, despite the red flags of his book and the anonymous letter, which had suggested that [he] was suffering from a psychological disorder but refused to seek treatment.

A member of Hamburg’s Hanseatic Gun Club, [he] had held a weapons licence since December last year, and the awarding of this permit is a focus of attention as the people of Hamburg prepare to bury their dead.

So once again, we see a mass shooting in an area with extensive gun control laws already on the books.

Sure, many are focusing on a single round sitting on top of the gun safe, but let’s be honest here. That’s not the issue.

The issue was, in part, that German gun control didn’t stop the Hamburg shooting. Gun control doesn’t do that.

What it does is make it so literally none of the people in that building had the means to resist this maniac.

Additionally, for all the talk of mental health, let’s remember that the shooter had to undergo a mental health screening in order to get his license. He passed that.

Now, I’m not saying that people can’t develop mental health issues afterward. Not at all. What I’m saying is that this is one of those measures we’re told we need here in the US, yet this is why it’s ineffective. The truth is many people can pass such a screening despite probably not being mentally well.

Germany has pretty extensive gun laws, some of the most extensive on the planet short of outright bans on anything more powerful than a blowgun.

That wasn’t the problem.

We’ll never solve the issue of mass shootings so long as people keep pretending guns are the issue, rather than people.

Latest on Hamburg shooting

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The city of Hamburg, Germany has seen its share of calamity through the years. It was destroyed several times during the medieval period, for example. It was also heavily bombed during World War II.

Since then, though, the city has known relative peace. For residents, that’s a very good thing for what should be rather obvious reasons.

That peace was shattered on Thursday, however, when a shooter killed a number of people at a Jehovah’s Witnesses church in the city.

Eight people were killed in a shooting at a Jehovah’s Witness place of worship in the German city of Hamburg and the gunman was among the dead, police said on Friday.

Police received a call soon after 9 p.m. (2000 GMT) on Thursday and officers arrived at the scene to find several people seriously injured and some dead.

“Then they heard a shot from above, they went upstairs and found one further person,” said a police spokesperson.

…

“We heard shots,” one unidentified witness told reporters. “There were 12 continuous shots,” he said. “Then we saw how people were taken away in black bags.”

The gunman was believed to be a former member of the Jehovah’s Witness community, Spiegel magazine reported. The man was aged between 30 and 40 and was not known to authorities as an extremist, the report said, citing unnamed sources.

When I wrote about this last night, there were just six or seven believed to have been killed. Whether that was a miscount or misreport or whether one of the injured died after that report is unclear. Frankly, it’s also irrelevant. Early reports are often wrong and body counts often increase in the aftermath, so it just is what it is.

So what is relevant?

Much of what’s relevant, besides the fact that eight people were killed, is information we largely don’t have right now. Police are currently looking for a motive, though we may never learn that.

We also don’t know how the killer obtained his firearm. Germany has strict gun control in place, so there are going to be questions as to how he got a gun in the first place.

Then we have the fact that this isn’t unique, either outside of the United States or even in Germany itself.

Germany has been shaken by a number of shootings in the last few years. In February 2020, a gunman with suspected far-right links shot dead nine people, including migrants from Turkey, in the western town of Hanau before killing himself and his mother.

In October 2019, a gunman killed two people when he opened fire outside a synagogue in the eastern city of Halle on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur.

So it’s been a few years–nowhere near the frequency we see here, quite frankly–but it’s not unheard of despite all that gun control we see in Germany and throughout Europe.

Look, we need to remember these, not just because innocent people died because some maniac wanted them to, but also because mass shootings may be a predominantly American issue, but they’re not uniquely so.

They happen in other places, even those with extensive gun control laws already in place, so maybe we can start looking a little deeper than weapons restrictions and try to find the underlying causes of this kind of thing.

Six dead in German mass shooting

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We’ve been told that mass shootings are a uniquely American problem. In fact, that particular word, “uniquely” is commonly used, as are some synonyms for it.

That means if the term is accurate, this is a problem we don’t see in other nations.

The problem is that we have. Time and time again.

Unfortunately, we’re seeing it again.

A number of people have been killed in a shooting at a church in Hamburg, Germany, police say.

The shooting took place on Deelböge street in the Gross Borstel district. Local media identified the location as a Jehovah’s Witness centre.

Police say a gunman is believed to be dead. It is unclear if the attacker is among six or seven fatalities reported by German media.

As yet, “there is no reliable information on the motive”, police say.

A police spokesman said investigators had “indications that a perpetrator may have been in the building and may be even among the dead”. “We have no indications of a perpetrator on the run,” he said.

“The officers themselves also heard a shot coming from the upper floors of the building,” the spokesman added. “They went upstairs and also found a body there.”

Now, this is still very early and we know, well, next to nothing to speak of.

At least one earlier report said a suspect was on the run, only for this to now say one isn’t.

We also do not know if the shooter was among the victims.

However, there are a few things worth noting. One is that if this place was anything like the Jehovah’s Witnesses churches we have around my parts, there are no windows. That may not have meant anything, but it may also have meant there were fewer avenues of escape for those within.

We also know that Germany has strict gun control laws, which creates a slew of questions about just how the shooter got a gun in the first place.

For all the unknowns, such as why, with what exactly, and a host of other things, we will be forced to wait.

I know that’s frustrating, but that’s just how it goes. We’ve seen that with mass shootings here in the US, and that’s without needing anything translated into English for popular consumption.

Needless to say, this will play into our domestic gun control debate and I’m quite sure Germany will be having its own discussions about guns, especially before we learn how the gunman got his.

And yes, I’m going to assume it was a guy because it usually is. Not universally, but that’s generally the case.

As we wait, though, I’m going to ask for thoughts and prayers for those who lost their lives and their families as well. A couple of us in the Bearing Arms family have a pretty good idea what they’re dealing with right now and the next weeks and months are going to be rough. Pray that they can get through it.

In the meantime, we will be following this story.