The German Interior Minister seems to have more common sense than a lot of our politicians. See the interview here:
Some German politicians have called for a ban on private gun ownership and urged authorities to set up airport-style security systems at schools in response to the massacre, which left 16 people dead, including the killer.
“I can’t see how a change in weapons rules would contribute anything to solving the problem,” Schaeuble, an ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, told Reuters.
In response to setting up airport style security at schools?
“Do we now want to treat pupils like passengers at the airport? Imagine the effect on children growing up under such circumstances. It’s absurd! I think it wouldn’t help us at all.”
Vielen Dank, Herr Schaeuble. The world needs your common sense during times like this.
I’m German. But I’m against a rivate gun ownership. It’s a too big risk as we’ve seen.
These kinds of events are exceedingly rare though, which is why they get such headlines when they do happen. We take a lot of risks in life, and we’re actually at a far greater danger of being killed by the common things in our lives than we are dying by gunfire.
I think it would be a tragedy to limit people’s freedom, both to enjoy shooting as a sport, and to protect themselves, in order to try, probably fruitlessly, to stop a low probability event. I say fruitlessly, because experience looking around the world shows that people will substitute other means for mass killing when guns aren’t available. This has happened knives, swords, and automobiles in other parts of the world where guns are more restricted.
You won’t stop someone bent on killing himself, and taking as many people down with him as he can, from doing it. There are a lot of ways to hurt people.
What would the kneejerk lefty Germans be saying if this kid had thrown a bunch of molotov cocktails at this school and some nearby houses – Germany needs to pass new laws to control petrol and/or glass bottles?
They’d probably not say anything like that, come to think of it. After all, molotov cocktails were a favorite weapon among their heroes in the communist “urban guerrilla” group, the Baader-Meinhof Group.
Hey Ludwig,
The last time the government had all the guns in Germany; how’d that work out for ya?