Word: erfurt
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...tragically familiar--but no one could have imagined the setting. What now ranks among the worst school shootings in history took place at Johann Gutenberg High School in Erfurt, a quiet 13th century cathedral town in the state of Thuringia in eastern Germany. "It's the kind of thing you expect to happen in America," said a visibly upset anchorman on German television. With its tough gun-control laws and a murder rate less than a quarter of the U.S.'s, Germany is not exactly a hotbed of random gun violence. But just as with the 1996 shooting that killed...
...attack's aftermath, Germany declared a day of national mourning. Flags were lowered to half-staff, and church bells tolled throughout Thuringia. In Erfurt thousands crammed into a church for an interfaith memorial service held just hours after the shooting. On Saturday, students, parents and teachers gathered in front of the school, where hundreds of bouquets, candles and toys filled the steps...
...from 18 to 21. Bavarian premier Edmund Stoiber suggested a ban on violent video and computer games. Youth groups said such proposals were an overreaction and would not have prevented 19-year-old Robert Steinhäuser from carrying out his deadly mission at the Gutenberg High School in Erfurt, which investigators said had been planned for at least six months...
...incident of its kind in recent German history, a 19-year-old expelled pupil opened fire on school staff members, killing 13, as well as two students and a policeman, before turning the gun on himself. Police said the scene at the Gutenberg Gymnasium in the eastern city of Erfurt was a "picture of horror," with bodies strewn throughout the building. The shooting followed a similar revenge attack at a school outside Munich in February and came as parliament coincidentally voted to extend already strict controls on weapons ownership...
...Coincidentally, the country's legislature passed even more stringent gun laws just hours after the shooting occurred. Still, while it's not yet known how the Erfurt shooter acquired his weapons, the deadly incident is a reminder that many believe Germany's gun problem isn't with its laws, but with existing weaponry. "Gun ownership was very high in the former East Germany, and when the Eastern bloc collapsed, those surplus military weapons flooded the private market," says Rebecca Peters, a senior fellow at the Open Society Institute, the philanthropic arm of the Soros Foundation in New York...