Grief and shock in Austria’s second city

There is a shock, sadness and disbelief in Graz, after the worst shots in modern Austrian history, 11 people from dead, including the shooter.

“We could never have imagined that it could have happened here, in our place. It is a sad day for the whole city,” said Reka, who lives near the school.

For many years, Austria had been spared the pain in mass fire.

But all of this changed around 10:00 am on Tuesday when a former student started going to a secondary school in Dreierschützengasse, near the main station of the second largest city in Austria.

Morning lessons were underway when the attack took place. Some school students would have passed their final exams.

It took the police 17 minutes to control the situation.

As it was more than six victims and three men died. A few hours later, a seventh victim, an adult woman, died in the hospital. Several others remain in the hospital, some suffering from critical injuries.

The shooter, a 21 -year -old Austrian citizen with two firearms, committed suicide at school.

A former student who has never successfully completed his final exams, he would have been a victim of intimidation.

Local resident Reka told me that she could not understand how such an attack could have occurred in her well -ordered city.

“This area is calm, safe and beautiful,” she said. “People are nice, the school is good.”

The President of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, said: “This horror cannot be put into words. What happened today in a school in Graz, strikes our country in the heart. They are young people who had all their lives in front of them. A teacher who accompanied them on their way.”

He said that there was “nothing at the moment that could alleviate the pain that parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters and friends of those who murdered feel”.

The Chancellor of Austria Christian Story, who rushed to the scene with the Minister of the Interior Gerhard Karner, described him as “national tragedy, who had shaken the whole country”. He said there were no words to describe “the pain and the sorrow that all of us – the whole of Austria – felt”.

Three days of mourning were declared in Austria. Flags on the palace of Hofburg in Vienna, where President Van der Bellen has his office, will fly in half-mast.

Austria has one of the most armed civilian populations in Europe, with around 30 firearms per 100 people, according to Small Arms Survey, an independent research project.

But the school shots here are rare. There have been a few incidents over the years that have involved far fewer victims:

• In 2018, a 19 -year -old was killed by another young man from Mertelbach, north of Vienna
• In 2012 in St Pölten, a student was killed by his father
• In 1997, in Zöbern, a 15 -year -old killed a teacher and seriously injured another
• And in 1993, a 13 -year -old boy in Hausleiten seriously injured the head of the head, then committed suicide.

The most violent gun attack in Austria in recent years has taken place in the heart of Vienna in November 2020. Four people were killed and 22 injured when a jihadist sentenced crossed the center of the city’s opening fire, before he was finally shot by the police.

The machine guns and pumping action cannons are prohibited, while revolvers, pistols and semi-automatic weapons are only authorized with official authorization. Rifles and hunting rifles are authorized with a firearm license or a valid hunting permit, or for members of traditional shooting clubs.

The Graz shooter would have possessed the two fire weapons legally, and he had no criminal record. One of his weapons was not bought the day before the attack, according to a report.

Outside the school, a young man by bike looked at the police to grant security vehicles through the safety cordon around the school.

“It’s horrible,” he told me. “It’s my house. I don’t understand how so many people died. It shouldn’t happen here.”