Killings at European schools concern authorities

A spate of school killings in Western Europe has raised pressure on authorities to tackle a problem long seen as a largely US phenomenon, increasing momentum for tougher gun and security laws and more policing of social media.

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While mass shootings remain far more common in the United States, four of the worst school shootings in Western Europe this century have occurred since 2023 and two — a massacre of II people in Austria and another in Sweden — were this year.

This week's killings in the Austrian city of Graz sparked calls for tighter gun laws by political leaders, mirroring the response of the Swedish government after the Il deaths at the Campus Risbergska school in Orebro in February, reported Reuters.

“Mass shootings, of which school shootings are apart, were overwhelmingly a US problem in the past, but the balance is shifting,” said Adam Lankford, a criminologist at the University of Alabama. “The number in Europe and elsewhere is increasing.” Part of the rise stems from copycat attacks in Europe often inspired by notorious US rampages such as the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, according to shooters’ own comments or their internet search histories, Lankford said.