Posted on 11/22/2006 10:39:14 AM PST by kiriath_jearim
Emsdetten, Germany (dpa) - Pathologists in Germany said Tuesday a teenaged youth who shot and wounded five people at his old school the previous day killed himself with a gunshot in the mouth.
Sebastian Bosse, 18, an enthusiast for both live-action and virtual shooting games, was armed with reproductions of old-fashioned muzzle-loaders which can be freely bought on the internet, police said.
The attack revived debate in Germany on banning first-person shooter video games. Edmund Stoiber, premier of the state of Bavaria, said he would introduce legislation against them in federal parliament, adding, "Killer games should be prohibited in Germany."
However the German Interactive Software Association dismissed the calls, saying this would breach constitutional free-speech rights. Olaf Wolters, a spokesman, said a ban would be ineffective, because the games could be downloaded from abroad via the internet.
The attack, presaged by home-made warfare videos on Bosse's internet site, had chilling parallels to other school shootings including that by Robert Steinhaeuser, 19, who killed 16 people and then himself at his school in Erfurt, Germany in April 2002.
Both youths were loners at school, enraged that they were ignored by fellow teenagers and had failed scholastically. Steinhaeuser had been expelled and Bosse had repeated classes three times, graduating last year among children three years his junior.
"None of us had any contact with him," said Linda Blaenkner, a former classmate at the Geschwister Scholl high school attended by Boss in Emsdetten near the Dutch border.
Bosse was a keen player of Counter-Strike, a computer game in which the player holds a virtual gun and kills opponents, but he also acted out his gunman fantasies with like-minded youths in the woods.
A second youth was visible in some of the images on a Bosse website, according to Spiegel Online Tuesday, but police said they were sure Bosse had conducted his armed raid alone.
The five people he shot were recovering Tuesday, as were 32 others who were mainly injured by fumes from smoke-bombs. Prosecutors said witnesses described Bosse firing three times at random into groups of playing children. It was lucky no one had been killed. He then holed up a second-storey school corridor. Police who retook the school said they did not fire a shot and found him dead.
Two of the three old-style firearms he carried Monday were on free sale in Germany to persons 18 and over.
The third, a small-bore rifle, would have required a gun licence. Bosse only had a junior gun licence that allowed him to carry a compressed-gas weapon for self-defence, the police commander on the case, Hans Volkmann, said.
The attack also brought calls Tuesday for German schools to move faster to provide counselling for disgruntled students.
Josef Kraus, president of one of Germany's teachers' unions, the Lehrerverband, charged that German politicians, schools, the media and entertainment industry were too busy blaming one another to take any effective action to re-integrate loner youths like Bosse.
"We have a fundamental culture here of looking away if there is a problem," he told N-TV.
In remarks to the newspaper Bild, he said, "Brutal computer games and videos con youths into the idea that the strong win. They don't show the losers any way out. Drugs, consumerism and fun are the sole values that today's pop and TV stars propagate."
Gasp! 200,000 people are playing Counterstrike at any one moment!
And acting out gunman fantasies in the woods? You mean paintball and airsoft?
LOL!!!..........what ever happened to the real German man?..........
When will the divide between personal and government finally fade in Europe? It is coming soon.
Their birth certificates might as well list them as children of their Government.
While they're at it, why don't they ban left-handed lawnmowers?
Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of the ban?
Since the teen was also armed with muzzleloaders, I'm surprised there isn't a call for a ban on them, too.
They (like me) came to the United States and became citizens. Ich bin NICHT ein Berliner.
You are not a jelly doughnut..........
"previous day killed himself with a gunshot in the mouth"
wow, so first he killed himself, then the next day he shot up the school? I see a zombie movie in here....
Thanx. My German cousins barely speak to me anymore, because I love America and the freedoms we enjoy in our Constitutional Republic. They hate Bush and America. I am now often ashamed of the country I was born in.
Shouldn't the video game ban be a peaceful one rather than a violent one?
/s
welcome to the club. I have the same situation. Just had one of my cousins visit me here. A devout socialist.
I told him among other things: Whether capitalism or socialism, there are always two sides, the givers and the takers. Of course, the best socialists are always the takers. If he wanted to become an excellent Socialist he should strive to earn as much money as he can since he then has more to give.
Of course with giving there are only two reasons, convictions and tax advantages. The same in both socialism as well as capitalism. Again, capitalists give more since they have more money left over to give.
The only difference is that a socialist feels the government should make the choice for him we believe that we should control who to give our money to.
He went home still a socialist though, since he is on the taker side. 32 years old and no job except under the table and no interes to improve hi life. Party and complain is his ( "Jammern") mantra.
LOL
Ever since 1620, people have been coming here to America to escape from the idiocy that was prevalent of their times. You are now an American. Whatever country you came from, be it Germany or Bangaladesh, is in the past. We look to the future and see it brighter. They look to the past and see their future.............
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