When nightmare is stranger than fiction (and no one is laughing)
Imagine it’s Tuesday, you’re in class dreaming about your 11 o’clock coffee and, suddenly, the sound of gunshots turns your high school into the setting of a movie that no one would want to star in. This is how the day began at the BORG Dreierschützengasse in Graz, Austria, where a 21-year-old former student—yes, another twenty-something with problems that no one knew how to detect—decided that his legacy would be a massacre. Nine lives cut short, twelve injured, and a country that wonders (again) how the hell it came to this.
The macabre script: legal weapons and zero criminal record
The aggressor, whose name the authorities are reluctant to make viral (good for them), used two weapons — a rifle and a pistol — which, surprise, he owned legally. Because Austria, that alpine paradise where schnapps and shotguns seem to be human rights, has gun laws more flexible than the diet of an influencer on vacation. Of course, to buy a semi-automatic you need a permit, but a hunting rifle? Your ID and a “please” are enough. What could go wrong?
The guy acted alone, he committed suicide in a bathroom (nothing like leaving the mess for others), and although he had no criminal record, something went wrong. Was it the system? Mental health? The ease of accessing weapons? Chancellor Christian Stocker called it a “dark day” and decreed three days of mourning, because nothing says “solidarity” like lowering flags and observing a minute of silence. Meanwhile, the Red Cross organized blood donations and therapies for survivors, because trauma does not go away with a hashtag.
Graz, the city that already knew horror
This is not the first violent act in Graz: in 2015, a guy ran over 30 people with his SUV. And in 2020, Vienna experienced a jihadist attack. Austria, that country you associate with Mozart and strudel, has a recent history of violence that doesn’t fit its postcard image. Of course, here guns are almost a souvenir: if you are 18 years old and want to hunt deer (or whatever), you can buy one without much drama. That explains why the shooter—who dropped out of school at some point—was able to create his own chaos without arousing suspicion.
Among the crudest testimonies is that of Metin Özden, owner of a nearby kebab, who saw 300 police officers and parents crying. “I’ve never seen so many emergency services,” he said. And be careful, this is a country where, until today, mass shootings were a Hollywood thing.
Moral? None. Just questions: How does a twenty-something with no record become a murderer? Why don’t gun laws provide for these cases? And, the most uncomfortable: When will we stop normalizing classrooms as war zones?
Are you outraged? Share this note. Because change begins when we stop looking elsewhere. And if you want more analysis on security and violence, explore our related content. #NeverAgain (or so we would like).
