Deadly German School shooting. (Insider Report).(Brief Article)

Shortly before 11:00 a.m. on April 26th, students at Gutenberg High School in Erfurt, Germany, were taking their final college-level exams when 19-year-old Robert Steinhaeuser, dressed in black and wearing a ski mask, emerged from a restroom armed with a pump-action shotgun and a handgun. Steinhaeuser had been expelled earlier this year, in part because he had forged doctors' excuses to avoid attending classes. Expulsion meant that he could neither receive a high school diploma nor take the university entrance exams.

Apparently bent on revenge and unhindered by Germany's draconian gun control laws, he plotted and carried out the deadliest school shooting in the country's post-war history. As the New York Times reported on April 28th, he "had acquired both his handgun and his pump-action shotgun [which he did not use] entirely legally," having "joined an officially accredited club for sport shooting, passed rigorous tests demonstrating his knowledge and ability and acquired official permission to purchase his weapons."

According to student accounts, Steinhaeuser entered a classroom where he killed two girls (ages 14 and 15), then went from room to room gunning down teachers and other school personnel. Eventually, as German special forces stormed the building and began closing in, he committed suicide in a classroom. The rampage left dead 11 teachers, ...