A school shooting in Kazan, Russia has left at least 8 people dead, including 7 students and a teacher. BBC. A 19 year old suspect was captured by police, and he was a legal gun owner. In addition to the deaths at least 20 other people were wounded. Some of the deaths and injuries may have been due to people jumping from 2nd story windows to escape the shooter. Vladimir Putin commented on the incident and said that gun laws may be reviewed. A motive for the attack has not been released but local sources say that the suspect was a former student at the school.
My Comment:
This is a breaking news story and as such some of the information may become inaccurate as time passes and more information becomes available. I have seen other numbers for the number of deaths with 8, 9 and 11 being the most common. The information wasn't even consistent on BBC as the article claims 8 while the link said 11. There was also the normal "2nd shooter" disinformation that always happens during a terror attack or mass shooting but usually isn't accurate.
It just goes to show that mass shootings and school shootings are not a strictly American phenomenon. Russia too has a fairly horrific history of mass shootings at schools, with the most recent being the shooting in Crimea back in 2018. And it's impossible to forget the Beslan school siege back in 2004, which remains one of the most disturbing attacks on a school in recent history. This attack seems particularly bad given the large number of students killed and injured.
The motive remains unknown but there are several possibilities. The region that this incident occurred in is mostly Muslim so it's possible that it was a terror attack, either against or in the name of Islam. It's also very possible that this was more traditional school shooting. I know the shooter in the Crimea shooting venerated Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine shooters, so it's possible something similar happened here.
It does make me wonder how much of a role the American media had to play in this attack. For awhile earlier in the year in was gun control all the time with every shooting played up to extreme levels and wall to wall coverage of any shooting at all. Since it has been proven that coverage of these attacks often inspires copycat attacks I think it's possible that the shooter in this case was inspired to do so due to media coverage of American mass shootings. That is of course speculation on my part, but it does seem to be what happened with the Crimea case in 2018.
I don't know how well prepared the police were for a mass shooting in this part of Russia. Mass shootings aren't uncommon in Russia despite their draconian gun laws. And the country has a long, bloody history of terrorism and mass violence. I assume that they have the same plans that American schools and police departments have but who knows? I am far from an expert on Russian education and law enforcement.
What does seem clear is that Russia's already limited gun rights are going to be threatened due to this incident. Vladimir Putin said he will review gun laws and it looks like they are going to reclassify the weapon used in the attack. I don't know the specific firearm but supposedly it would be considered an "assault weapon" here but was classified as a hunting weapon in Russia. That is probably going to change unfortunately as once again everyone's right to self defense is threatened by these kinds of mass shootings.
I don't think any new gun control laws would have done anything to stop this incident. Russia is a corrupt country and guns are easy enough to find illegally, but even if the jumps and hoops of owning a firearm changed, we have to point out that the attacker was supposedly a legal gun owner regardless. He already passed the background checks without anyone knowing what he was planning on doing.
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