Conquer Club

Fifteen people have been killed after a teenage gunman went on a rampage in south-west Germany, officials say.

Twelve of the dead were students and teachers at the Albertville secondary school in Winnenden, north of Stuttgart, police say.

The gunman, a 17-year-old former pupil, is also dead, but it is not clear whether he was shot or killed himself.

The teenager, who entered the school wearing black combat gear, died in a shoot-out 40km (25 miles) away.

Pedronicus wrote:For a change, a european decides to up the ante and europe wins!

Fifteen people have been killed after a teenage gunman went on a rampage in south-west Germany, officials say.

Twelve of the dead were students and teachers at the Albertville secondary school in Winnenden, north of Stuttgart, police say.

The gunman, a 17-year-old former pupil, is also dead, but it is not clear whether he was shot or killed himself.

The teenager, who entered the school wearing black combat gear, died in a shoot-out 40km (25 miles) away.

joecoolfrog wrote:Was his right to own a gun worth the death of 10 people including a one year old child,what about their right to live ?

Pedronicus wrote:For a change, a european decides to up the ante and europe wins!

Fifteen people have been killed after a teenage gunman went on a rampage in south-west Germany, officials say.

Twelve of the dead were students and teachers at the Albertville secondary school in Winnenden, north of Stuttgart, police say.

The gunman, a 17-year-old former pupil, is also dead, but it is not clear whether he was shot or killed himself.

The teenager, who entered the school wearing black combat gear, died in a shoot-out 40km (25 miles) away.

joecoolfrog wrote:Was his right to own a gun worth the death of 10 people including a one year old child,what about their right to live ?

AAFitz wrote:

joecoolfrog wrote:Was his right to own a gun worth the death of 10 people including a one year old child,what about their right to live ?

Dont be silly! If there were no guns, he would have just used a bow and arrow, or a knife.

They are just as effective according to some gun advocates. Of course, this does bring into question why we need them at all doesn't it?

A man who converted replica submachine guns into lethal weapons that were later linked to some of Britain's most notorious murders was convicted of a string of firearms offences today.

Grant Wilkinson paid £55,000 in cash for 90 blank-firing Mac-10 guns, telling the dealer they would be used on the set of a new James Bond film.

But he was operating a gun factory from two garden sheds near Reading, Berkshire "on a commercial scale" unprecedented in Britain, said police.

Once converted to fire live rounds, Wilkinson sold them to members of London's criminal underworld for up to £2,500 each.

One weapon he converted was linked to the murder of Pc Sharon Beshenivsky, who was shot at the scene of a robbery in Bradford in 2005. Gangsters used another to kill 15-year-old Michael Dosunmu in Peckham, south London, who was shot in his bed after being mistaken for his brother.

Wilkinson, 34, of no fixed abode, was convicted by a jury at Reading crown court today.

His co-defendant Gary Lewis, 38, of Bourne End, Buckinghamshire, was cleared of all charges. Lewis had told the court he was merely Wilkinson's "odd job man" and was ignorant of the gun racket.

Police said guns converted by Wilkinson were linked to 52 of the 59 Mac-related incidents in the UK since 2003, including nine murders. "In 2004 we started having shootings with Mac-10s, whereas we had not had them before. There was a sea change," said Detective Chief Superintendent Gary Richardson, of Scotland Yard's Trident gun crime unit.

Denis Burke, of the Crown Prosecution Service's complex case unit, said: "Wilkinson established a firearms factory in a small suburb of Reading that was able to meet the demand nationally of the criminal fraternity. The firearms have since been used in all of our big cities, especially London."

Police have recovered 50 of the guns and today offered a reward of up to £10,000 for information leading to the recovery of the 40 that remain unaccounted for, or the arrest of anyone involved in incidents related to them.

For three years, Wilkinson ran a sophisticated gun conversion operation from two tatty sheds in Three Mile Cross behind a derelict house called the Briars, which he rented out.

One shed was a workshop and the other a sound-proofed testing house with a firing range. Police found costly industrial equipment used to smelt and cut metals and 27,700 spent cartridges that could be converted back into live ammunition. The factory was discovered by one of Wilkinson's tenants.

Calling himself Grant Wilson, Wilkinson had bought the blank-firing guns from Guy Savage of Sabre Defence Industries, a registered gun dealer in Northolt, west London, who had previously supplied Bond films. His "desperately disorganised" behaviour aroused such suspicion that Savage secretly photographed him on his mobile phone, but police were unable to identify him.

In his defence, Wilkinson said he was working for someone else, a man called Kevin Danaher, who was stabbed to death by an associate in May 2006.

First produced in 1970, Mac-10s are US military weapons designed for close combat. They are popular in gangland circles for their "bling" value and high firing rate. Their low accuracy has earned them the nickname "spray and pray". Even trained firearms officers have struggled to control them.

"These are attractive items for those connected to organised criminal networks. If you have one of these readily available, you will be targeted by other criminals who want to take it off you," said Richardson.

"One of the integral problems with these weapons is they do not necessarily hit your intended target. They also have difficulty stopping and starting them. They go off and they are difficult to keep in single fire."

Claudia Webbe, who chairs the Trident independent advisory group, said: "We can see very clearly the devastating impact of this heinous crime, particularly and disproportionately, although not exclusively, on black communities.

"Here we have an armoury factory in the suburbs of Berkshire creating deadly weapons that are clearly ending up in the hands of 17-, 18-, 19-year-olds, in inner city urban London."

Wilkinson was convicted of seven offences: conspiracy to convert imitation firearms; conspiracy to sell or transfer firearms; conspiracy to sell or transfer ammunition; two counts of possession of firearms with intent to endanger life; and two counts of possession of ammunition with intent to endanger life. He will be sentenced tomorrow.

RECENT US SHOOTINGS
Dec 2008: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus kills nine people and himself on Christmas Eve in LA
Sept 2008: Six people die in a series of shootings in the north-west of Washington state
June 2008: A worker at a plastics plant in Kentucky kills five people and wounds one other before killing himself
Feb 2008: Five people die and 18 are wounded after a man opens fire at Northern Illinois University
Dec 2007: A gunman kills eight people and wounds five at a shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska, before killing himself
Apr 2007: 32 people and the gunman die at the Virginia Tech campus

theusual1 wrote:If you take guns away it will be a similar situation to when prohibition was in America. There would still be plenty of guns around and organized crime will make even more money. The government does not have the power to manage to get rid of guns.

theusual1 wrote:It would be ironic if the government uses guns to prevent people from using guns.

theusual1 wrote:In the UK guns are banned and knife crime is much worse.

MeDeFe wrote:He should have had a gun.

Wait...

GabonX wrote:

theusual1 wrote:In the UK guns are banned and knife crime is much worse.

This is a very relevant fact. Both knife and gun violence have increased in the UK since the handgun ban was enacted.

joecoolfrog wrote:Gabon is lying again

Pedronicus wrote:

GabonX wrote:

theusual1 wrote:In the UK guns are banned and knife crime is much worse.

This is a very relevant fact. Both knife and gun violence have increased in the UK since the handgun ban was enacted.

All violence has increased. the amount of guns in circulation has nothing to do with this general increase in violent acts.

GabonX wrote:It is the most obvious cause for the universal increase in violence in the United Kingdom.

HapSmo19 wrote:508 Chicago School Students Shot In 16 Months

Twenty-five Chicago Public School students have been murdered this year. As shocking as that number is, there is another figure that's very disturbing as well: the number of students who have been shot in a 16-month period is enough to fill an elementary school - 508 students, according to school officials. CBS station WBBM-TV in Chicago's Chief Correspondent Jay Levine asks why, and what is being done to stop it.

Think about it. By this time tomorrow, odds are at least one Chicago Public School student will have been shot. By this time next week, there'll be seven. It's a staggering, frightening, shameful statistic that judging from the reaction we got, those who could do something aren't anxious to talk about.

"No one really wants to address this but we need to call for a state of emergency," said Pastor Roosevelt Watkins.

Chicago Public School students are relatively safe until they leave school, but after that, the closer to home, stats show, the more dangerous it is.

We wanted to talk with Brian Samuels, the school official analyzing the data. He wasn't available.

An alternative to drugs, guns and violence is an after-school program at the Bethlehem Star Missionary Baptist Church where virtually every one of the kids have been touched by that violence.

"This place is a safe haven for them, and that's why they attend here on a regular basis," Pastor Watkins said.

When asked how many of the students know a friend or relative who has been shot - slowly, the hands go up. When five of seven children raise their hands, you know there's a problem.

"My uncle got shot right in front of our building, while we were playing basketball. I was kind of scared 'cause he was a family member, and I didn't want him to die," said 14-year-old Davell Jackson. "I was kind of frightened that I could have got shot too."

"My cousin, he was driving, and somebody shot at his car, and he flew out the window and he was killed," said 13-year-old Alvin Howard.

Not far from the church, on Friday night, an 18-year-old CPS graduate was shot and killed. It was just weeks after his 17-year-old brother was among three young men murdered by an alleged gunman just recently acquitted of murder - within view of a police blue light camera, which anonymous officers on the Internet claim are all too often being used to replace a shrinking force of street cops.

"It's like rarely do you see a police officer drive by," said 12-year-old Beverly Lambert.

WBBM-TV wanted to speak with Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis about the startling statistics, but we were told by an aide that after leaving federal court Monday morning, he was too busy.

But it's not only a police problem.

"There's a fear in the neighborhood because the people fear retaliation," Pastor Watkins said. "We need to go back to the old school way where we had neighbors knowing each other, building neighborhood block clubs."

There's plenty of blame to go around - from neighbors' blind eyes to broken families to schools without truant officers to police manpower. Until everyone starts working together, joining forces instead of pointing fingers, the shooting will undoubtedly continue.

http://wcbstv.com/national/Chicago.Scho ... 55165.html

I'll bet money that none of them were shot by people who legally possessed the gun

Timminz wrote:

GabonX wrote:It is the most obvious cause for the universal increase in violence in the United Kingdom.

When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail.

GabonX wrote:All of the clever phrases in the world won't change that fact.

Pedronicus wrote:Twelve of the dead were students and teachers at the Albertville secondary school in Winnenden, north of Stuttgart, police say.

Timminz wrote:

GabonX wrote:All of the clever phrases in the world won't change that fact.

Sorry for not being more clear. My point was that when you're looking at one particular issue, and only that particular issue, it can be very easy to assume that all stats have to do with that issue. I'm not saying you're right or wrong, just that there are, more than likely, factors other than gun-ownership laws at play in the overall crime stats.

snufkin wrote:

Pedronicus wrote:Twelve of the dead were students and teachers at the Albertville secondary school in Winnenden, north of Stuttgart, police say.

There´s a very simple solution to problems like these - every child/student should have been required by law to carry a loaded unsecured gun to easily prevent things like this.

snufkin wrote:and everyone knows that it´s just as easy to kill 16 people with a kitchen knife - I do it all the time.

GabonX wrote:The United States has a largely open border where fire fights erupt between Americans and foriegn nationals.

GabonX wrote:Based on these facts the logical conclusion is that the high murder rate in the United States is not a result of lax gun laws but rather indicates that there are not ENOUGH guns in society held by responsible citizens.

Timminz wrote:

GabonX wrote:All of the clever phrases in the world won't change that fact.

Sorry for not being more clear. My point was that when you're looking at one particular issue, and only that particular issue, it can be very easy to assume that all stats have to do with that issue. I'm not saying you're right or wrong, just that there are, more than likely, factors other than gun-ownership laws at play in the overall crime stats.

There is a near universal increase in violence in countries which take away the populations right to keep and bear arms while there is an absolutely universal drop in violent crime in every US state which has recognized people's right to bear arms.

Frigidus wrote: Do murderers really say to themselves, "Gee, somebody might have a weapon with which they could fight back...I guess I'll just have to give up on crime."