On the 26th of april
in 2002 a 19year old boy ran amok in the Gutenberg school of Erfurt. He
was a former student. His victims were primarily teachers as well as some
students.
A lot of questions came up after the massacre:
-Was it just an aggressive boy who went mad?
- Are the teachers at fault as well?
-Or even the society?
-Should there be more regulations and restrictions in a school?
- Do we need a new weapon law?
The amok runner was a member of a gun club
Robert S. was member of a gun club. He knew very well how to use a gun.
Considering this fact a prevention could be to tighten the requirements
for a membership in a gun club. Since Robert S. was able to be in contact
with guns he probably lost respect for weapons. He got used to them and
maybe wasn’t aware of the fact that you can really kill a person.
So the barrier between exercise and reality blurred. The membership itself
wasn’t the reason why Robert S. ran amok. However, it would have
been a bigger step to do the massacre if he wouldn’t be used to
guns already. 
This leads us to the next question: Why can a 19 year old boy buy a weapon
legally? The question can be asked even more general: Is it necessary
that a civil person bears a weapon? Aren’t police men the only people
who really need a gun? Of course it is sensible to bear a weapon in case
you have to defense yourself – but isn’t a knife sufficient?
It was essential and indispensable to change the weapon law after the
massacre of Erfurt. However, it seems that the law should have been tighten
even more.
After the bloody deed the spotlight was pointed at the television as well. Directors of several senders gave account about the violence shown in TV. They claimed that showing crime on TV is nothing else but a mirror of reality and one has to cope with it -in reality as well as in fiction. People have to be confronted with well-through out, differentiated and diplomatic movies, reportages and documentations. The goal of showing violent films ostensibly doesn’t end in itself. Violence is shown in order to arouse people and make them thinking and dealing with violence. TV never uses violence as an instrument to solve problems.
If you surf through some websites there are many possibilities to see images and video films of the massacre, but is this really necessary? It seems that this influences teenagers as well. They are too often confronted with images like this and so they get used to it.
Aggressiveness occurs not only on TV or in several homepages but in computer games as well. There are so many computer games dealing with brutality. Of course some are banned but this isn’t a sufficient solution. A lot of LAN-Partys take place: people sitting in front of their PCs, which are connected to each other. So they can easily exchange games to one another. That is one way of getting and playing games which are forbidden. Robert S. was fascinated of some typical games which people play at LAN- Partys as well. It seems that we need better laws and restrictions which forbid meetings like this. If you meet people which have the same interests and inclinations you risk that you get involved in it even more.
More protection in schools
A lot of people hold the opinion that the school massacre could have been
prevented if there would be controls before you enter a school. After
the bloody deed of Erfurt a lot of parents demanded more protection for
their kids. Politicians, however state that they don’t want to make
prisons out of schools. There are many schools in the States where students
have to show the content of their bags. However, many people consider
these controls as a violation of the human rights.
Further Links:
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archive
school
& violence