12-Year-Old Detained After Fatal School Shooting in Finland

A younger boy fatally shot a 12-year-old pupil and wounded two others at a college in Finland on Tuesday, the police mentioned, a uncommon act of violence by a toddler in a rustic that modified its gun legal guidelines after earlier college shootings however the place gun possession stays widespread.

The police mentioned they’d detained a suspect, additionally 12 years outdated, who had a handgun, about an hour after arriving on the Viertola college, within the metropolis of Vantaa, about 10 miles north of Helsinki. He is accused of homicide and tried homicide, the police mentioned.

As is customary with legal investigations in Finland, the police didn’t launch the suspect’s identify.

“We as society have learned from the earlier sad school shootings,” the nationwide police chief, Seppo Kolehmainen, mentioned at a news convention — however he added, “We did not manage to prevent the act in this sad event.”

“We will find out later why,” he mentioned.

Finland tightened its gun legal guidelines after two college shootings, in 2007 and 2008, by which 20 folks died, together with the perpetrators. Those shootings impressed a heated debate over firearm laws in a rustic of hunters and gun lovers.

A legislation launched in 2011 raised the age restrict for buying handguns to twenty, made it obligatory for candidates to go a flair check and added a requirement that medical doctors report anybody they deemed unfit to personal a gun.

Yet Finland nonetheless has one of many highest charges of firearm possession in Europe, in keeping with the 2018 Small Arms Survey, performed by the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva.

Under Finnish legislation, permits for firearms will be granted solely to individuals who can exhibit “an acceptable purpose of use” and are thought-about match primarily based on their well being and conduct.

It was unclear how the coed in Tuesday’s taking pictures had obtained the handgun, however the police mentioned that the weapon was licensed to a detailed relative of the suspect.

Prime Minister Petteri Orpo advised the news convention that, particularly given the younger age of the attacker and the victims, “The shooting incident at the Viertola school is deeply shocking and leaves you speechless.”