Aftermath News

Firearms owner John Markell holds a Glock 9 mm pistol in Roanoke, Va., in this April file photo. The gun is similar to one sold to Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter. Congress on Wednesday passed a long-stalled bill inspired by the Virginia Tech shootings that would more easily flag prospective gun buyers who have documented mental health problems.

Associated Press | Dec 20, 2007

By LAURIE KELLMAN

WASHINGTON - Congress on Wednesday passed a long-stalled bill inspired by the Virginia Tech shootings that would more easily flag prospective gun buyers who have documented mental health problems. The measure also would help states with the cost.

Passage by voice votes in the House and Senate came after months of negotiations between Senate Democrats and the lone Republican, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who had objected and delayed passage.

It was not immediately clear whether President Bush intended to sign, veto or ignore the bill. If Congress does not technically go out of session, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has threatened, the bill would become law if Bush does not act within 10 days.

“This bill will make America safer without affecting the rights of a single law-abiding citizen,” said the Senate’s chief sponsor, New York Democrat Chuck Schumer.

One of the House’s chief sponsors, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, spoke in the full House about her husband, who was killed by a gunman on the Long Island Railroad in New York. “To me, this is the best Christmas present I could ever receive,” said McCarthy, D-N.Y.

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., added that the bill will speed up background checks and reinforce the rights of law abiding gun owners.

Propelling the bill were the Virginia Tech shootings on April 16 and rare agreement between political foes, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the National Rifle Association.

But other interest groups said that in forging compromise with the gun lobby, the bill’s authors unintentionally imposed an unnecessary burden on government agencies by freeing up thousands of people to buy guns.

“Rather than focusing on improving the current laws prohibiting people with certain mental health disabilities from buying guns, the bill is now nothing more than a gun lobby wish list,” said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center. “It will waste millions of taxpayer dollars restoring the gun privileges of persons previously determined to present a danger to themselves or others.”

The measure would clarify what mental health records should be reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which help gun dealers determine whether to sell a firearm to a prospective buyer, and give states financial incentives for compliance. The attorney general could penalize states if they fail to meet compliance targets.

Despite the combined superpowers of bill’s supporters, Coburn held it up for months because he worried that millions of dollars in new spending would not be paid for by cuts in other programs.

His chief concern, he said, was that it did not pay for successful appeals by veterans or other people who say they are wrongly barred from buying a gun.

Just before midnight Tuesday, Coburn and the Democratic supporters of the bill struck a deal: The government would pay for the cost of appeals by gun owners and prospective buyers who argue successfully in court that they were wrongly deemed unqualified for mental health reasons.

The compromise would require that incorrect records — such as expunged mental health rulings that once disqualified a prospective gun buyer but no longer do — be removed from system within 30 days.

The original bill would require any agency, such as the Veterans Administration or the Defense Department, to notify a person flagged as mentally ill and disqualified from buying or possessing a gun. The new version now also would require the notification when someone has been cleared of that restriction.

The bill would authorize up to $250 million a year over five years for the states and as much as $125 million a year over the same period for state courts to help defray the cost of enacting the policy.

Propelling the long-sought legislation were the April 16 killings at Virginia Tech. Student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 students and himself using two guns he had bought despite his documented history of mental illness.

Cho had been ruled a danger to himself during a court commitment hearing in 2005. He had been ordered to have outpatient mental health treatment and should have been barred from buying the two guns he used. But Virginia never forwarded the information to the national background check system.

A Penn State student dressed as a Virginia Tech massacre victim at a Halloween party, with a fake bullet wound in her chest. The photo sparked outrage on both campuses.

DAILY NEWS | Dec 8, 2007

A Penn State student dressed as a Virginia Tech massacre victim at a Halloween party, with a fake bullet wound in her chest. The photo sparked outrage on both campuses.

Two Penn State students have re-opened a wound after they costumed themselves for a Halloween party as victims of last spring’s shooting massacre at Virginia Tech.

Photos of two Penn State students, partying in Virginia Tech paraphernalia marked with bullet holes and fake blood, made their way onto the social networking site Facebook.

The one photo accessible to the public came to the attention of WSLS-TV, a local station in Roanoke, Va., which broadcast a report late this week.

The station’s interview with one of the Penn State students who wore the outfits drew the outraged attention of both campuses - especially because he defended the costumes, which WSLS-TV deemed too offensive to even show.

“It’s not that it was funny,” the student said of the costumes. “It’s that we are notorious and infamous and very popular in the state college, so we have to do things that push the envelope just for shock value,” he said.

He went on to imply that Virginia Tech students’ public displays of grief less than a year after the massacre are at least partly for show.

“This is a group of college students who now think it’s trendy to be upset about their friends being killed,” said the Penn student.

He said those who objected to the costumes were blowing things out of proportion.

“The thing is, everybody’s making a big stink about Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech was 32 deaths out of the 26 thousand that happen in America everyday,” he said. “That’s the problem with college students. They all live in an ivory tower of privilege. They don’t understand, when it all boils down to it, it’s someone wearing a costume.”

Penn State newspaper The Collegian reported that within hours of the interview broadcast, which did not show the student, a Virgina Tech Facebook group called “People against this costume” had more than 4000 members.

On Saturday the group, which is open only to Virginia Tech students, listed 3,335 members.

After the tragedy, in which gunman Seung Hui Cho killed 32 people before committing suicide, Penn State was quick to express support and solidarity with Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg.

The April 16 massacre was the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, and the campus’ scars are far from healed.

Once the photos came to light, Penn State was quick to condemn - and distance itself from - its students actions. “We are appalled that these individuals would display this level of insensitivity, indifference, and lack of common decency and sense by dressing up in this manner,” the school said in a statement obtained by WSLS-TV.

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Globe Staff | Nov 17, 2007

By Maria Cramer

Boston police are launching a program that will call upon parents in high-crime neighborhoods to allow detectives into their homes, without a warrant, to search for guns in their children’s bedrooms.

The program, which is already raising questions about civil liberties, is based on the premise that parents are so fearful of gun violence and the possibility that their own teenagers will be caught up in it that they will turn to police for help, even in their own households.

In the next two weeks, Boston police officers who are assigned to schools will begin going to homes where they believe teenagers might have guns. The officers will travel in groups of three, dress in plainclothes to avoid attracting negative attention, and ask the teenager’s parent or legal guardian for permission to search. If the parents say no, police said, the officers will leave.

If officers find a gun, police said, they will not charge the teenager with unlawful gun possession, unless the firearm is linked to a shooting or homicide.

The program was unveiled yesterday by Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis in a meeting with several community leaders.

“I just have a queasy feeling anytime the police try to do an end run around the Constitution,” said Thomas Nolan, a former Boston police lieutenant who now teaches criminology at Boston University. “The police have restrictions on their authority and ability to conduct searches. The Constitution was written with a very specific intent, and that was to keep the law out of private homes unless there is a written document signed by a judge and based on probable cause. Here, you don’t have that.”

Critics said they worry that some residents will be too intimidated by a police presence on their doorstep to say no to a search.

“Our biggest concern is the notion of informed consent,” said Amy Reichbach, a racial justice advocate at the American Civil Liberties Union. “People might not understand the implications of weapons being tested or any contraband being found.”

But Davis said the point of the program, dubbed Safe Homes, is to make streets safer, not to incarcerate people.

“This isn’t evidence that we’re going to present in a criminal case,” said Davis, who met with community leaders yesterday to get feedback on the program. “This is a seizing of a very dangerous object. . . .

“I understand people’s concerns about this, but the mothers of the young men who have been arrested with firearms that I’ve talked to are in a quandary,” he said. “They don’t know what to do when faced with the problem of dealing with a teenage boy in possession of a firearm. We’re giving them an option in that case.”

Continued…

In declaring ‘war against humanity’, might 18-year-old Pekka-Eric Auvinen have been doing his bit to save the planet?

Spiked | Nov 12, 2007

Self-loathing has been around for a long time. There have always been individuals who have acted on feelings of disgust for themselves and for others.

by Frank Furedi

However, today self-loathing is underwritten by a powerful cultural script of misanthrophy; by a cultural outlook which sees humanity as a polluter rather than a problem-solver. It strikes me that Pekka-Eric Auvinen, who has been named as the Finnish school shooter who yesterday killed his headmistress, seven fellow pupils and then himself, may have been acting out this cultural script.

Online, Auvinen went by the name Sturmgeist89. In the various YouTube videos and the 1,000-word manifesto that have been credited to him, he sent out a straightforward message. He declared that ‘not all human lives are important or worth saving’.

In one video he wore a t-shirt that said ‘Humanity is overrated’. This chilling slogan does not come from some violent Hollywood movie or gangsta rap track - which are usually blamed for sending young people off the rails - but rather from the critically-acclaimed US drama House, in which British actor Hugh Laurie plays a cynical doctor who works in the field of infectious diseases. Indeed, you can buy ‘Humanity is overrated’ t-shirts from the House website here.

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The Times | Nov 10, 2007

A group of young people who idolised the Columbine High School killers may have shared information on the internet

by Roger Boyes

The YouTube killer who shot dead eight members of his school in Finland before turning his gun on himself had internet contacts with an American teenager who was planning a shooting spree in a high school in Philadelphia, it was claimed yesterday.

The disclosure could turn upside down previous assumptions about the dynamics of school massacres. Until now, teenage killers were regarded as depressed loners whose imagination had been stoked by aggressive computer games. Now it seems that information may have been shared by potential killers over the internet: a virtual community of young people who idolise the 1999 Columbine High School murders.

“It’s highly probable that there was some form of contact between Pekka-Eric Auvinen and Dillon Cossey,” a spokesman for the cyber crime department of Helsinki police said. Dillon Cossey, 14, was arrested last month on suspicion of planning to storm his old school, Plymouth Whitemarsh. Police acting on a tipoff found a 9mm semi-automatic rifle, handmade grenades, a .22 pistol and a .22 single-shot rifle at his home. Less than two weeks later Auvinen, already a member of a shooting club, was buying his first gun — a .22 pistol — and expressing interest in a 9mm semi-automatic.

Police do not believe this to have been a coincidence. The two youths are thought to have made contact over two MySpace groups, “RIP Eric and Dylan” — a reference to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 schoolmates at Columbine — and “Natural Selection”.

Dillon Cossey used the alias Shadow 19462 on internet forums. Overweight and bullied, he had been withdrawn from Plymouth Whitemarsh and was resentful. His MySpace profile lauded the Columbine killers as heroes.The 18- year-old Finnish killer made a rambling testimony on YouTube, clearly drawing on the rhetoric used in the Natural Selection group and related chat rooms. His YouTube account — under the pseudonym Sturmgeist89 — included snippets from violent films, shots of him posing with his “beloved” pistol and tributes to other mass murderers. It was viewed 200,000 times before being closed down after the Finnish high school killings on Wednesday.

Police are trying to establish whether the Jokela massacre was in some way a copycat event or whether it resulted from an exchange of tips across the internet. Across Europe cyber-crime experts are nervous that some of the abuses on the net committed by Islamic fanatics could become a model for other marginalised groups. The diaries of the Columbine killers also give detailed guidance about their crime.

The two 18-year-olds in Columbine had planned to set the school on fire to spread panic. This appears to have also featured in the plans of Auvinen. However, he brought only a small quantity of lighter fuel, not enough to cause a blaze. Instead he relied on an enormous cache of ammunition for his Sig Sauer Mosquito handgun. He pumped 68 bullets into his eight victims; the 69th he shot into his own skull. Police found 500 rounds of unused ammunition in his rucksack.

“We have to look out for the warning signs,” said Tonni Karpela, a Finnish security expert. “Plainly there is a problem if a young person openly espouses violence and regards it as a solution.” Finnish authorities were trying to piece together the clues on the internet and in the classroom. More concrete measures to protect schools have been ruled out. “I am firmly against metal detectors in schools,” Mr Karpela said. “That won’t make pupils feel better or more secure.”

The Government has said that it will look again at gun control regulations but it is unlikely that they will be tightened severely. Guns are common in Finland: 56 per cent of the population owns one. Everybody over the age of 15 can apply for a gun permit; usually the applicants are hunters. Auvinen was a member of the Helsinki Shooting Club, which enjoys some notoriety in the capital. Eight years ago a member suffering from schizophrenia shot three men dead.

“If we suspect anyone of being mentally sick we will not accept him as a member of the club,” Mari Kiuru, the owner of the club, said. Auvinen showed no outward sign of psychological problems, even though his schoolmates noted that he talked obsessively about his gun.

Unlike in the case of Dillon Cossey there is no sign that Auvinen’s parents were drawn into his fantasy world. Dillon Cossey’s mother has been arrested in America for buying weapons for her son. Auvinen’s parents are regarded as somewhat bohemian in the small dormitory township of Jokela. His father plays part time in a jazz band and composes his own music; Auvinen’s mother is an activist for the Greens. They are regarded as stalwart members of the community and neighbours describe them as a “normal family”. Since Wednesday they have been living under police protection.

NewsRoom Finland | Nov 8, 2007

A number of foreign news media focused on the number of legal guns in Finland when covering the school shooting in Tuusula in southern Finland that claimed nine lives.

Cable News Network said in a bulletin that the number of legal firearms in relation to Finland’s population was third highest behind those in the US and Yemen.

The Mirror, a British tabloid, ran a heading saying Finland’s lax gun laws were under scrutiny.

The Guardian underlined that Finland’s murder rate was the highest in western Europe, while the Times sought an explanation in low population density and lack of light during the autumn and winter months.

A frame taken from YouTube footage shows student Pekka-Eric Auvinen who opened fire at Jokela High School school in Finland November 7, 2007. Auvinen admired Hitler, counted Plato and Nietzsche among his favourite writers and called the handgun he used to end eight lives in Finland’s deadliest peacetime shooting rampage “Catherine”.

Reuters | Nov 8, 2007

By Sakari Suoninen

TUUSULA (Reuters) - Pekka-Eric Auvinen admired Adolf Hitler, counted Plato and Nietzsche among his favourite writers and called the handgun he used to end eight lives in Finland’s deadliest peacetime shooting rampage “Catherine”.

The exact reason 18-year-old Auvinen chose on Wednesday to open fire at Jokela High School — killing six fellow pupils, the principal and the school nurse — may never be known.

But the clearest clues lie in the words he wrote online.

“I am a cynical existentialist, anti-human humanist, anti-social socialdarwinist, realistic idealist and god-like atheist,” he wrote in English in a posting on YouTube.

“Don’t blame my parents or my friends. I told nobody about my plans and I always kept them inside my mind only.”

Auvinen called himself a “natural selector” and said he would “eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection.”

So on Wednesday, he wrote a suicide message, took a gun he’d received a permit for three weeks before and 500 rounds of ammunition and walked through the school firing.

Police said each of his victims was shot several times and that some bodies were riddled with close to 20 bullets.

“He was always a little odd,” said classmate Roope Parviainen, trying to come to grips with the tragedy by walking with friends at a cemetery in Tuusula, a municipality 60 km south of Helsinki.

“A few months ago some of his close friends had noticed some videos and strange behaviour, I do not know whether he was already thinking about this.”

Auvinen telegraphed his intent on YouTube with a video clip called “Jokela High School Massacre - 11/7/2007″ set to the song “Stray Bullet” by industrial rock band KMFDM.

ECHOES OF COLUMBINE

Lyrics to various KMFDM songs, including “Stray Bullet” were also posted on a Web site maintained by Eric Harris, one of the gunmen in the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in America. The two gunmen killed 12 other students and a teacher before killing themselves.

The clip shows a still photo of the Jokela school complex beside a pond. This breaks apart to reveal a red-tinted image of Auvinen aiming a gun at the camera — an image eerily similar to that on tapes made by Virginia Tech university shooter Seung-Hui Cho who killed 32 people in April this year.

“Sturmgeist89″ — Auvinen’s user name on YouTube — means storm spirit in German.

“You might ask yourselves, why did I do this and what do I want. Well, most of you are too arrogant and closed-minded to understand,” he wrote.

The “human race is not worth fighting for or saving … only worth killing.”

Kim Kiuru, a history and psychology teacher at Jokela school who had taught Auvinen, said Auvinen was a good student with unusual interests.

“He was interested in war history and extremist movements, national socialism,” Kiuru said.

Police said he came from a “normal family” and lived with his parents and little brother.

Auvinen also wrote online about his admiration for Hitler and said Plato and Nietzsche were among his favourite writers. He said he wished for an end to democracy.

“When intelligent people are finally free and rule the society instead of the idiocratic rule of majority,” he wrote. “In that great day of deliverance, you will know what I want.”

Susanna Hyttinen, 17, a fellow pupil who had taken a class with Auvinen said he was “never aggressive”.

She said he had showed a great deal of interest in a documentary the class watched in May about the Columbine school shootings in the United States.

“We wrote an essay on gun use, and he wrote a long and thorough one,” she said. “He was a good student, but very quiet, not many people knew him well.”

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