In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
Options
German Rifle Clubs Cancel Meet
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
German Rifle Clubs Cancel Meet
By JOERG ABERGER
Associated Press Writer
April 27, 2002, 5:59 PM EDT
SUHL, Germany -- German rifle clubs abandoned a nationwide meet Saturday after an expelled student fatally shot 16 people and himself in a high school, but members insisted their sport should not be blamed for breeding a killer.
Organizers called off a day of target shooting and a parade in this east German city, located just 30 miles from Erfurt, where a 19-year-old went on a rampage Friday.
"We couldn't go on here while people in Erfurt are mourning," said Heinz-Helmut Fischer, deputy head of the group that organized the meet of about 2,200 shooting enthusiasts.
Instead, members gathered to discuss the tragedy -- eager to distance their own activities from gun-related crimes.
The killer, Robert Steinhaeuser, was a member of two gun clubs.
"This was a case of an individual, someone who should not be connected with recreational shooting," said the union's president, Josef Ambacher, adding that "what happened in Erfurt has nothing to do with marksmanship."
One gun club member at the meet, Harald Strier, said police statistics show that "only 0.01 percent of all fatal crimes are committed using legally held weapons."
Germany has tight gun control laws, but there are millions of legal weapons in German homes, registered for use in sport and hunting or kept by collectors. The government says there are 7.2 million firearms legally owned by 2.3 million people, including hunters, target shooters and people who have inherited weapons.
Authorities estimate there are about 20 million illegally held weapons in the country.
Copyright c 2002, The Associated Press http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-germany-rifle-clubs0427apr27.story
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By JOERG ABERGER
Associated Press Writer
April 27, 2002, 5:59 PM EDT
SUHL, Germany -- German rifle clubs abandoned a nationwide meet Saturday after an expelled student fatally shot 16 people and himself in a high school, but members insisted their sport should not be blamed for breeding a killer.
Organizers called off a day of target shooting and a parade in this east German city, located just 30 miles from Erfurt, where a 19-year-old went on a rampage Friday.
"We couldn't go on here while people in Erfurt are mourning," said Heinz-Helmut Fischer, deputy head of the group that organized the meet of about 2,200 shooting enthusiasts.
Instead, members gathered to discuss the tragedy -- eager to distance their own activities from gun-related crimes.
The killer, Robert Steinhaeuser, was a member of two gun clubs.
"This was a case of an individual, someone who should not be connected with recreational shooting," said the union's president, Josef Ambacher, adding that "what happened in Erfurt has nothing to do with marksmanship."
One gun club member at the meet, Harald Strier, said police statistics show that "only 0.01 percent of all fatal crimes are committed using legally held weapons."
Germany has tight gun control laws, but there are millions of legal weapons in German homes, registered for use in sport and hunting or kept by collectors. The government says there are 7.2 million firearms legally owned by 2.3 million people, including hunters, target shooters and people who have inherited weapons.
Authorities estimate there are about 20 million illegally held weapons in the country.
Copyright c 2002, The Associated Press http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-germany-rifle-clubs0427apr27.story
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878