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Politicians bicker over gun law reforms on Winnenden anniversary

Amid memorials on the one year anniversary of the deadly Winnenden school shooting on Thursday, politicians and law enforcement authorities bickered over whether changes to weapon laws have been successful.

Published: 11 March 2010 09:19 CET
Politicians bicker over gun law reforms on Winnenden anniversary
Photo: DPA

Seventeen-year-old Tim Kretschmer killed 15 people and himself in the picturesque southwestern town during a rampage that started at his old school on March 11, 2009. His father has since been charged with manslaughter because he was allegedly negligent in the storage of more than a dozen weapons at his house, one of which – a 9mm Beretta pistol – was used in the killings.

Three months after the shooting, the German parliament made gun owners subject to random checks not requiring any specific suspicion of wrongdoing. The tightened laws also mean that gun owners face heavier penalties for violating storage regulations.

On Thursday, the head of the professional police association (BDK) Klaus Jansen argued that despite reforms, blatant security violations by gun owners continue to allow young people easy access to weapons.

“Random inspections in Baden-Württemberg have shown that more than half of the weapons owners do not have their munitions locked up as prescribed,” he told daily Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, adding that new school shooting emergency plans frequently go unpractised.

Germany has capitulated to the weapons lobby, Jansen continued.

“The hobby of shooting sports remains a priority above human life in Germany as it did before,” he said.

Meanwhile Social Democrat Fritz Rudolf Körper, who led parliamentary negotiations to strengthen Germany’s weapons law last year after the shooting, spoke of “quite massive” attempts by the weapons lobby to influence the legal process.

In an interview with broadcaster Deutschlandfunk, Körper said the country’s weapons registry has not been vigilantly implemented, and called for a renewed amnesty for those who turn in illegal firearms.

But deputy head of the Christian Democratic parliamentary group Wolfgang Bosbach disagreed in the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, saying the reforms have been successful.

“They have increased the awareness that weapons must be securely stored in the home,” he told the paper.

German President Horst Köhler is scheduled to speak at a public memorial service in Winnenden at 11 am on Thursday.

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CRIME

Germany arrests Syrian man accused of plotting to kill soldiers

German authorities said Friday they had arrested a 27-year-old Syrian man who allegedly planned an Islamist attack on army soldiers using two machetes in Bavaria.

Published: 13 September 2024 11:17 CEST
Germany arrests Syrian man accused of plotting to kill soldiers

The suspect, an “alleged follower of a radical Islamic ideology”, was arrested on Thursday on charges of planning “a serious act of violence endangering the state”.

The man had acquired two heavy knives “around 40 centimetres (more than one foot) in length” in recent days, prosecutors in Munich said.

He planned to “attack Bundeswehr soldiers” in the city of Hof in northern Bavaria during their lunch break, aiming “to kill as many of them as possible”, prosecutors said.

“The accused wanted to attract attention and create a feeling of insecurity among the population,” they said.

German security services have been on high alert over the threat of Islamist attacks, in particular since the Gaza war erupted on October 7th with the Hamas attacks on Israel.

Police shot dead a man in Munich this month after he opened fire on officers in what was being treated as a suspected “terrorist attack” on the Israeli consulate in Munich.

The shootout fell on the anniversary of the kidnap and killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games by Palestinian militants.

The 18-year-old suspect had previously been investigated by authorities in his home country Austria on suspicion of links to terrorism but the case had been dropped.

The incident capped a string of attacks in Germany, which have stirred a sense of insecurity in Germany and fed a bitter debate of immigration.

Three people were killed last month in a suspected Islamist stabbing at a festival in the western city of Solingen.

READ ALSO: ‘Ban asylum seekers’ – How Germany is reacting to Solingen attack

The suspect in the attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State group, was a Syrian man who had been slated for deportation from Germany.

A federal interior ministry spokesman said if an Islamist motive was confirmed in the latest foiled attack, it would be “further evidence of the high threat posed by Islamist terrorism in Germany, which was recently demonstrated by the serious crimes in Mannheim and the attack in Solingen, but also by acts that were fortunately prevented by the timely intervention of the security authorities”.

The Solingen stabbing followed a knife attack in the city of Mannheim in May, which left a policeman dead, and which had also been linked to Islamism by officials.

Germany has responded to the attacks by taking steps to tighten immigration controls and knife laws.

READ ALSO: Debt, migration and the far-right – the big challenges facing Germany this autumn

The government has announced new checks along all of its borders and promised to speed up deportations of migrants who have no right to stay in Germany.

The number of people considered Islamist extremists in Germany fell slightly from 27,480 in 2022 to 27,200 last year, according to a report from the federal domestic intelligence agency.

But Interior Minister Nancy Faeser warned in August that “the threat posed by Islamist terrorism remains high”.

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