Massacre at Winnenden: The failure of German gun control

March 13, 2:17 PMCharlotte Gun Rights ExaminerPaul Valone

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Samson, Alabama and Winnenden, Germany.

One town rural; the other, a prosperous suburb. Different gun laws, different countries, different cultures, different continents. Yet the two towns suffered mass murders just hours apart: Ten died in Samson, fifteen in and around Albertville high school in Winnenden.

This segment will examine what didn’t work:

• The failure of police intervention in protecting victims;

• The failure of strict German gun control to stop what is now the third such incident there in recent years; and

• How experts recount the near impossibility of predicting violent behavior.

The next segment will examine why most multiple victim public homicides occur in ostensibly “gun free” zones, and will document cases in which armed intervention by private citizens minimized losses, and demonstrate the positive impact of concealed handgun laws in reducing these crimes.

GERMAN GUN LAWS THAT FAILED

While Alabama scored only a “15” on the Brady Campaign’s 100-point state “scoreboard,” Germany has all of the gun controls that the group claims will reduce violence, including universal registration, licensing and gun storage requirements. Laws were further strengthened after a 2006 school shooting in Emsdetten.

Notes The Guardian of Britain:

“Over the past decade more teenagers have gone on the rampage in Germany than in any other country apart from the US. Germany also has some of the world's strictest gun laws.

“Handguns are on sale only to those 18 or over, with heavier weapons restricted to over 21s. No weapon can be purchased legally without a firearms ownership licence, which is available only after personal checks.

“None of this prevented a 17-year-old former pupil of Albertville school in Winnenden going on the rampage.”

WHERE WERE THE POLICE?

According to The New York Times, German police took only two minutes to respond, bringing to mind the adage that “when seconds count, help is only minutes away.”

“[German] officials said that several police officers arrived at the school two minutes after receiving an emergency call at 9:33 a.m. and that they could hear shots still being fired.”

WILL MORE GUN CONTROL SOLVE THE PROBLEM?

Although Germany has a mandatory gun storage law, The Wall Street Journal indicated that the Beretta 9mm used by 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer was not secured:

"Weapons should be locked and out of reach, but the law is not enforced," said Association of German Police Detectives spokesman Bernd Carstensen.

And how would Germany enforce a mandatory gun storage law? Perhaps by the mandatory home inspections endured by the few English once determined enough to own guns, or in accordance with what the Brady Center had in mind in the 1990s, when they peddled “Brady II” and it’s “arsenal license.” Enforcement of storage laws is impossible without invading individuals’ homes.

PREDICTING MAYHEM IS ALL BUT IMPOSSIBLE

What connects the shootings not only to each other but to previous mass murders are perpetrators who are disaffected and seeking revenge for perceived wrongs against them.

Professor James Alan Fox from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, and the author of "Extreme Killing: Understanding Serial and Mass Murder," says gun laws would not necessarily solve the problem, noting that mass killers blame others for their problems:

"Then when they decide that life is not worth living anymore - many of them commit suicide - they are eager to gain some satisfaction, some payback by going after people who they hold responsible.”

While individuals like Kretschmer sometimes telegraph their intentions to others, Fox notes that only rarely can violence be predicted:

"The good news is that these episodes are rare, the bad news is that because they are rare we cannot predict them.

"We cannot identify the shooters before they go on rampages, all we really can do perhaps is reach out to those people near us, to make sure that if they are suffering, if they are troubled, that they have our support.”

Gun control, behavioral predictions and police intervention have repeatedly failed to prevent or curtail multiple victim public homicides. In the next segment, we will examine what works: Concealed handgun laws and intervention by armed citizens.