I live pretty close to Winnenden, so allow me...
JWAN said:
They mentioned it, besides most manic depressed people don't leave the house and just get more and more depressed till they snap. If they mention it that does not = blaming it. post the article. I don't think it was the video game I think it was just the kids pastime, but it may have showed that he was depressed, but it does not show the extent of how much he was depressed.
Wait doesn't Germany have full gun registration? I thought school shootings were because of America and the damned 2nd amendment?
Yes, we have rather strict and tight gun laws. We already had those before the first school massacre in Erfurt seven years ago, yet they still found ways to improve upon them.
This case has little to do with gun law though.
And even less with any discussion about the 2nd amendment.
The boy didn't own a weapon, nor did he manage to purchase one.
His father, who is part of a gun club (It's a traditional thing in many smaller villages) owns a plethora of weapons (there's been some rumours that a couple of these might have been owned illegally, but nothing concrete has been stated and it's probably just a rumour) and had them simply lying around for the picking. News also state that he used to take his son to the shooting range.
The boy also had shown much interest in those softair guns before, which might explain his proficiency further, and, prior to the massacre he had been in psychatric care due to his depressions, yet aborted his treatment.
http://www.rheinpfalz.de/cgi-bin/cms2/cms.pl?cmd=showMsg&tpl=rhpMsg_thickbox.html&path=/rhp/welt/topthemen&id=TOPTHEMEN090312153215.nhrm0b0q
In any case, people are looking for someone to blame, albeit most people I've talked to and that were interviewed for the news (I mostly just listen to the radio and read some newspapers, though. Dunno about TV) do not blame video games, despite the mentions of counterstrike. They already gave up on blaming video games back when the first german school massacre came around.
Instead we got parents blaming the teachers and the teachers blaming the parents. They also interviewed a bus driver, who blames both the parents and the teachers. Can't really blame the dead idiot who thought it was a good idea to shoot people just because some girls didn't like him and noone appreciated his genius.
I guess another victim is, as always, the personal responsibility of everyone, because not having any is way too comfortable.