Kauhajoki school shooting
Encyclopedia
The Kauhajoki school shooting was a school shooting that occurred on 23 September 2008, at Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences
in Kauhajoki
, a city in Western Finland
. The gunman, 22-year-old culinary art
s student Matti Juhani Saari, shot and fatally injured ten people with a semi-automatic pistol, before shooting himself in the head. He died a few hours later in Tampere University Hospital. One woman was injured but was in a stable condition.
The shooting took place at the Kauhajoki School of Hospitality, owned by the Seinäjoki Municipal Federation of Education. The facilities and campus were shared between the Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences and the Seinäjoki Vocational Education Centre – Sedu. Saari was a second-year student in a Bachelor of Hospitality Management degree programme.
The incident was the second school shooting in less than a year in Finland, the other being the Jokela school shooting
in November 2007, in which nine people including the gunman were killed. Before that, only one other school shooting had taken place in the country's history, in Rauma
in 1989, leaving two people dead.
), when roughly 200 people were assembled inside the college. The emergency services received their first call at 10:46. Saari was armed with a .22 LR caliber Walther P22 Target semi-automatic firearm
and home-made Molotov cocktail
s. He wore dark clothing and a balaclava (ski mask). The school's caretaker Jukka Forsberg, who had several shots directed at him but survived, said "[The gunman] was very well prepared. He walked calmly."
Saari initially opened fire on a group of students taking a business studies
exam, and entered at least one other classroom. According to the three students who were able to escape the exam room (there were roughly 20 students taking the exam), Saari had approached his victims individually before shooting them. It was also said that he was revelling in the situation and was acting very aggressively. Saari encountered little resistance, and massacre was concluded relatively quickly. He then covered the classroom in a flammable liquid, believed to be petrol, and set the room alight.
A student in an adjacent classroom, Sanna Orpana, said that her class had heard "shooting and a kind of a rumble like tables falling down." Orpana believed at the time that the noise may have been coming from a toy gun, and two other students went to investigate the noise. Saari shot at them, and the remaining students in Orpana's classroom hid under a table before running upstairs. At some point between 10:45–11:00 Saari ran down a corridor and threw a petrol bomb into a language laboratory. He then shot out all of the windows in the school's main corridor, that extended through the building. It was during this time that he also took aim at Forsberg.
A police van with two officers arrived a short time after the shootings began, at around 11:00. They entered the yard of the college where they were shot at by Saari, and forced to retreat. From around 11:45 to 12:00 further police units, bolstered by a number of armoured vehicles, began to arrive on the scene. They attempted to enter the building through the main corridor, but this assault was aborted due to the black smoke that was emanating from within the building.
Having escaped the buildings in a variety of ways (including through doors and out of windows), some students found themselves impeded by a river that adjoined the school. However, some were able to use rowing boats as a means of escape. Saari started fires at several other locations within the school buildings, and the fire in the exam room damaged some of the bodies so badly that they had to be identified from DNA
and dental records. Nine of the victims were found in the exam room, and one in a nearby corridor. It was later ascertained that this student had fled the burning classroom and then died in the corridor. Eight of the victims were female students, one a male student, and one a male member of staff. All of the students killed were in their 20s, and the teacher was in his 50s. A 21-year-old woman was shot in the head but had two operations in the days after sustaining her injury, and was reported as being in a satisfactory condition. A further ten students were treated for minor injuries including sprains and cuts from broken glass. All the victims were classmates of Saari's. Saari was originally from Pohjois-Pohjanmaa, but lived in Kauhajoki where he was enrolled on his catering course at the college. It was later revealed that the male student was probably a close friend of Saari's. The pair had spent an evening out together in February 2008 when they were threatened with a starter pistol. A photo of them together had been circulating on the Internet, in which he jokingly points at his friend's head with his forefinger. The names of the other victims were withheld by police.
Firefighters extinguished the fires without any major damage to the school. Saari remained at large for some time in the school grounds after they had been evacuated. Two days after the killings, a friend of Saari's, named Rauno, told 7 päivää
that at 11:53 he received a call from Saari in which he confessed to having killed ten people. Saari is claimed to have spoken to Rauno in a calm manner, telling him that he wanted to say goodbye. He was found alive by the police at 12:30, having shot himself in the head. He was taken to Tampere University Hospital, where he was treated for his gunshot wound. He died a short time later.
With a total of ten people killed, it was the deadliest peacetime attack in Finnish history, surpassing the previous highest count of eight in the Jokela school shooting
. It was the deadliest attack on a school campus since April 2007, when Seung-Hui Cho
killed 32 people during the Virginia Tech massacre
. Saari had fired a total of nearly 200 shots, including towards the air. The highest number of shots inflicted to a single victim was twenty.
Saari left behind two handwritten notes in his school dormitory stating that his motive for the shooting was: "I hate the human race." He also wrote: "The solution is Walther 22", a reference to the handgun used in the shooting. The notes revealed that he had been planning the massacre for six years. A police spokesperson commented: "Saari left notes saying he had a hatred for mankind, for the whole of the human race, and that he had been thinking about what he was going to do for years. The notes show he was very troubled and he hated everything." One former classmate, Susanna Keronen, stated: "He was happy, a social guy –– there was nothing exceptional – and he got along with people well and he was not lonely. He had friends." However, Saari had a history of violence: he had been thrown out of the Finnish Army
in 2006, after being a member for only a month for opening fire in a woodland exercise, against orders.
Police were also investigating whether a copycat
element was involved after it emerged that both Saari and Pekka-Eric Auvinen, the gunman in the Jokela school shooting
, had bought their guns from the same store. Both gunmen had taken photographs of themselves in similar poses, and Jari Neulaniemi, the detective leading the Kauhajoki investigation, said that it was "very likely" that the two men had been in contact at some point. Both had been part of a group of people, who centred their activities around YouTube
and Finnish social networking
site IRC-Galleria
, who were interested in school shootings. This community, which included members from Finland, Germany
, and the United States
, exchanged videos related to school shootings.
Police said that although most of the victims were female, the motive did not seem to be a hatred of women. Rauno stated in his interview that Saari had opted for a catering course in order to be surrounded by female students. Saari had told Rauno that he had been the victim of bullying in secondary school, and later upper secondary, and that he had had to drop out for this reason. Rauno said that Saari's behaviour had begun to worry him over two years before the shootings, when Saari began expressing a fondness for guns and an admiration of the school shootings in the United States. He said that around 18 months previously Saari had sent him a message saying that he would carry out a school shooting the next day. Saari reportedly denied being serious about carrying out his threat. A friend of Saari also reported that he had been seeing a psychologist
in the months before the shooting, and had been obsessed with guns.
Police said after their preliminary investigation (March 2009) that they were unable to determine the underlying motives of Saari. They added that he had committed his crimes alone: 200 people were interviewed during the investigation, none of whom said they knew of Saari's plans. Contact with Auvinen was also ruled out.
In the weeks leading up to the incident, Saari had posted several videos on YouTube
under the username of "Wumpscut86", showing him firing a handgun at a local shooting range. The YouTube user channel was accompanied by the quote "Whole life is war and whole life is pain. And you will fight alone in your personal war". These are lyrics from the song "War" by the German industrial
project :wumpscut:. Among the user's YouTube account favourites was footage of the Columbine High School massacre
. Saari listed his interests on YouTube as "horror movies, guns, sex, beer and computers." YouTube suspended the account, on which he called himself "Mr. Saari", as soon as news reports linking him to the shooting emerged. A spokesperson for YouTube commented that the site operated a zero tolerance policy towards threats and incitement to violence. Finnish police had been informed about the YouTube videos in an anonymous tip-off on the Friday before the shooting. The police talked to Saari and searched his home on the day before the incident, Monday 22 September. They found no reason to arrest him as he held a temporary weapons permit. In August 2008, Saari had obtained a licence for a .22-calibre (5.6 mm) pistol. The police said that Saari did not have a criminal record. However, a police inspector was subsequently charged with dereliction of duty, and his court case began in September 2009.
Saari also posted another video on a Finnish social networking
site, in which he pointed a gun at the camera and said in English "You will die next", followed by firing four shots in the direction of the camera. This video was not available to the police when Saari was questioned. A police spokesperson commented: "The only video we saw was where he was shooting at the range. It was only afterwards that much more information came out." Police said that Saari would have been detained if they had known about this video at the time of the questioning. Police said that they believed Saari's videos were shot by someone else, and that they were trying to identify who this person was. The Chief Investigator of the case, Jari Neulaniemi, speculated that the cameraman may have been the friend of Saari's who was murdered.
Saari's account on IRC-Galleria
, which contained similar gun-wielding photos, was also suspended. Interior Minister Anne Holmlund
announced that the actions of the police would be investigated. Police Commissioner
Mikko Paatero said that Finnish police would increase their monitoring of YouTube and other social networking sites, and when asked whether similar attacks could take place in the future, he replied: "I badly fear it's possible."
On the day of the incident, a crisis meeting was held, with government ministers, chairs of the parliamentary groups, and police officials all in attendance. The Prime Minister
Matti Vanhanen
described it as a "tragic day" and appealed for unity in the hope "that events like these will not happen again." A national day of mourning
was declared for the following day, and Vanhanen travelled to Kauhajoki to meet with students.
Within days of the shooting, the police said they had received a sizeable number of tip-offs alerting the them to suspicious photographs, videos, and comments on chat room
s. Finnish media reported that several bomb threats and other threatening messages were circulating among students nationwide in the few days after the shootings as well.
Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences
Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences is a local municipality-owned Finnish institution of higher education based in six municipalities of Southern Ostrobothnia...
in Kauhajoki
Kauhajoki
Kauhajoki is a town and municipality of Finland. The city is unilingually Finnish.It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Southern Ostrobothnia region. The population of Kauhajoki is and the municipality covers an area of of which is inland water...
, a city in Western Finland
Western Finland
Western Finland was a province of Finland from 1997 to 2010. It bordered the provinces of Oulu, Eastern Finland and Southern Finland. It also bordered the Gulf of Bothnia towards Åland.- History :...
. The gunman, 22-year-old culinary art
Culinary art
Culinary art is the art of preparing and cooking foods. The word "culinary" is defined as something related to, or connected with, cooking. A culinarion is a person working in the culinary arts. A culinarian working in restaurants is commonly known as a cook or a chef. Culinary artists are...
s student Matti Juhani Saari, shot and fatally injured ten people with a semi-automatic pistol, before shooting himself in the head. He died a few hours later in Tampere University Hospital. One woman was injured but was in a stable condition.
The shooting took place at the Kauhajoki School of Hospitality, owned by the Seinäjoki Municipal Federation of Education. The facilities and campus were shared between the Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences and the Seinäjoki Vocational Education Centre – Sedu. Saari was a second-year student in a Bachelor of Hospitality Management degree programme.
The incident was the second school shooting in less than a year in Finland, the other being the Jokela school shooting
Jokela school shooting
The Jokela school massacre was a school shooting that occurred on November 7, 2007, at Jokela High School in Jokela, a town in the municipality of Tuusula, Finland. The gunman, 18-year-old student Pekka-Eric Auvinen, entered the school on that morning armed with a semi-automatic pistol. He killed...
in November 2007, in which nine people including the gunman were killed. Before that, only one other school shooting had taken place in the country's history, in Rauma
Rauma, Finland
Rauma is a town and municipality of ca. inhabitants on the west coast of Finland, north of Turku, and south of Pori. Granted town privileges on May 17, 1442 , Rauma is known of its high quality lace , and of the old wooden architecture of its centre , which is a Unesco world heritage...
in 1989, leaving two people dead.
Shooting
Saari entered through the school buildings via the basement. The shooting began at around 10:40 (UTC+3Eastern European Summer Time
Eastern European Summer Time is one of the names of UTC+3 time zone, 3 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. It is used as a summer daylight saving time in some European, North African, and Middle Eastern countries...
), when roughly 200 people were assembled inside the college. The emergency services received their first call at 10:46. Saari was armed with a .22 LR caliber Walther P22 Target semi-automatic firearm
Semi-automatic firearm
A semi-automatic, or self-loading firearm is a weapon which performs all steps necessary to prepare the weapon to fire again after firing—assuming cartridges remain in the weapon's feed device or magazine...
and home-made Molotov cocktail
Molotov cocktail
The Molotov cocktail, also known as the petrol bomb, gasoline bomb, Molotov bomb, fire bottle, fire bomb, or simply Molotov, is a generic name used for a variety of improvised incendiary weapons...
s. He wore dark clothing and a balaclava (ski mask). The school's caretaker Jukka Forsberg, who had several shots directed at him but survived, said "[The gunman] was very well prepared. He walked calmly."
Saari initially opened fire on a group of students taking a business studies
Business studies
Business studies is an academic subject taught at higher level in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom, as well as at university level in many countries...
exam, and entered at least one other classroom. According to the three students who were able to escape the exam room (there were roughly 20 students taking the exam), Saari had approached his victims individually before shooting them. It was also said that he was revelling in the situation and was acting very aggressively. Saari encountered little resistance, and massacre was concluded relatively quickly. He then covered the classroom in a flammable liquid, believed to be petrol, and set the room alight.
Having escaped the buildings in a variety of ways (including through doors and out of windows), some students found themselves impeded by a river that adjoined the school. However, some were able to use rowing boats as a means of escape. Saari started fires at several other locations within the school buildings, and the fire in the exam room damaged some of the bodies so badly that they had to be identified from DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
and dental records. Nine of the victims were found in the exam room, and one in a nearby corridor. It was later ascertained that this student had fled the burning classroom and then died in the corridor. Eight of the victims were female students, one a male student, and one a male member of staff. All of the students killed were in their 20s, and the teacher was in his 50s. A 21-year-old woman was shot in the head but had two operations in the days after sustaining her injury, and was reported as being in a satisfactory condition. A further ten students were treated for minor injuries including sprains and cuts from broken glass. All the victims were classmates of Saari's. Saari was originally from Pohjois-Pohjanmaa, but lived in Kauhajoki where he was enrolled on his catering course at the college. It was later revealed that the male student was probably a close friend of Saari's. The pair had spent an evening out together in February 2008 when they were threatened with a starter pistol. A photo of them together had been circulating on the Internet, in which he jokingly points at his friend's head with his forefinger. The names of the other victims were withheld by police.
7 päivää
7 päivää is a Finnish entertainment and TV magazine published by Aller Julkaisut Oy in Helsinki. In 2005 it had a circulation of 264,067. It was first published in 1992.-Columns and subjects:...
that at 11:53 he received a call from Saari in which he confessed to having killed ten people. Saari is claimed to have spoken to Rauno in a calm manner, telling him that he wanted to say goodbye. He was found alive by the police at 12:30, having shot himself in the head. He was taken to Tampere University Hospital, where he was treated for his gunshot wound. He died a short time later.
With a total of ten people killed, it was the deadliest peacetime attack in Finnish history, surpassing the previous highest count of eight in the Jokela school shooting
Jokela school shooting
The Jokela school massacre was a school shooting that occurred on November 7, 2007, at Jokela High School in Jokela, a town in the municipality of Tuusula, Finland. The gunman, 18-year-old student Pekka-Eric Auvinen, entered the school on that morning armed with a semi-automatic pistol. He killed...
. It was the deadliest attack on a school campus since April 2007, when Seung-Hui Cho
Seung-Hui Cho
Seung-Hui Cho was a senior-level undergraduate student at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University who killed 32 people and wounded 17 others on April 16, 2007, in the shooting rampage which came to be known as the "Virginia Tech massacre." Cho later committed suicide after law...
killed 32 people during the Virginia Tech massacre
Virginia Tech massacre
The Virginia Tech massacre was a school shooting that took place on April 16, 2007, on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. In two separate attacks, approximately two hours apart, the perpetrator, Seung-Hui Cho, killed 32 people...
. Saari had fired a total of nearly 200 shots, including towards the air. The highest number of shots inflicted to a single victim was twenty.
Motive
Finnish Army
The Finnish Army is the land forces branch of the Finnish Defence Forces.Today's Army is divided into six branches: the infantry , field artillery, anti-aircraft artillery, engineers, signals, and materiel troops.-History of the Finnish Army:Between 1809 and 1917 Finland was an autonomous part of...
in 2006, after being a member for only a month for opening fire in a woodland exercise, against orders.
Police were also investigating whether a copycat
Copycat crimes
A copycat crime is a criminal act that is modelled or inspired by a previous crime that has been reported in the media or described in fiction.-Copycat effect:...
element was involved after it emerged that both Saari and Pekka-Eric Auvinen, the gunman in the Jokela school shooting
Jokela school shooting
The Jokela school massacre was a school shooting that occurred on November 7, 2007, at Jokela High School in Jokela, a town in the municipality of Tuusula, Finland. The gunman, 18-year-old student Pekka-Eric Auvinen, entered the school on that morning armed with a semi-automatic pistol. He killed...
, had bought their guns from the same store. Both gunmen had taken photographs of themselves in similar poses, and Jari Neulaniemi, the detective leading the Kauhajoki investigation, said that it was "very likely" that the two men had been in contact at some point. Both had been part of a group of people, who centred their activities around YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
and Finnish social networking
Social network service
A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities. A social network service consists of a representation of each user , his/her social...
site IRC-Galleria
IRC-Galleria
IRC-Galleria is the largest social networking website in Finland. It was founded in December 2000 by Tomi Lintelä as a photo gallery for the Finnish users of Internet Relay Chat . As of April 2009, IRC-Galleria has over 500,000 registered users and 9 million images. Over 90% of the users are...
, who were interested in school shootings. This community, which included members from Finland, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, exchanged videos related to school shootings.
Police said that although most of the victims were female, the motive did not seem to be a hatred of women. Rauno stated in his interview that Saari had opted for a catering course in order to be surrounded by female students. Saari had told Rauno that he had been the victim of bullying in secondary school, and later upper secondary, and that he had had to drop out for this reason. Rauno said that Saari's behaviour had begun to worry him over two years before the shootings, when Saari began expressing a fondness for guns and an admiration of the school shootings in the United States. He said that around 18 months previously Saari had sent him a message saying that he would carry out a school shooting the next day. Saari reportedly denied being serious about carrying out his threat. A friend of Saari also reported that he had been seeing a psychologist
Psychologist
Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...
in the months before the shooting, and had been obsessed with guns.
Police said after their preliminary investigation (March 2009) that they were unable to determine the underlying motives of Saari. They added that he had committed his crimes alone: 200 people were interviewed during the investigation, none of whom said they knew of Saari's plans. Contact with Auvinen was also ruled out.
Internet videos and photographs
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
under the username of "Wumpscut86", showing him firing a handgun at a local shooting range. The YouTube user channel was accompanied by the quote "Whole life is war and whole life is pain. And you will fight alone in your personal war". These are lyrics from the song "War" by the German industrial
Electro-industrial
Electro-industrial is a music genre drawing on EBM and post-industrial that developed in the mid-1980s. While EBM has a minimal structure and clean production, electro-industrial has a deep, complex and layered sound. The style was pioneered by Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly, and other groups,...
project :wumpscut:. Among the user's YouTube account favourites was footage of the Columbine High School massacre
Columbine High School massacre
The Columbine High School massacre occurred on Tuesday, April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, an unincorporated area of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States, near Denver and Littleton. Two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a massacre, killing 12...
. Saari listed his interests on YouTube as "horror movies, guns, sex, beer and computers." YouTube suspended the account, on which he called himself "Mr. Saari", as soon as news reports linking him to the shooting emerged. A spokesperson for YouTube commented that the site operated a zero tolerance policy towards threats and incitement to violence. Finnish police had been informed about the YouTube videos in an anonymous tip-off on the Friday before the shooting. The police talked to Saari and searched his home on the day before the incident, Monday 22 September. They found no reason to arrest him as he held a temporary weapons permit. In August 2008, Saari had obtained a licence for a .22-calibre (5.6 mm) pistol. The police said that Saari did not have a criminal record. However, a police inspector was subsequently charged with dereliction of duty, and his court case began in September 2009.
Saari also posted another video on a Finnish social networking
Social network service
A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities. A social network service consists of a representation of each user , his/her social...
site, in which he pointed a gun at the camera and said in English "You will die next", followed by firing four shots in the direction of the camera. This video was not available to the police when Saari was questioned. A police spokesperson commented: "The only video we saw was where he was shooting at the range. It was only afterwards that much more information came out." Police said that Saari would have been detained if they had known about this video at the time of the questioning. Police said that they believed Saari's videos were shot by someone else, and that they were trying to identify who this person was. The Chief Investigator of the case, Jari Neulaniemi, speculated that the cameraman may have been the friend of Saari's who was murdered.
Saari's account on IRC-Galleria
IRC-Galleria
IRC-Galleria is the largest social networking website in Finland. It was founded in December 2000 by Tomi Lintelä as a photo gallery for the Finnish users of Internet Relay Chat . As of April 2009, IRC-Galleria has over 500,000 registered users and 9 million images. Over 90% of the users are...
, which contained similar gun-wielding photos, was also suspended. Interior Minister Anne Holmlund
Anne Holmlund
Anne Elisabeth Holmlund is a Finnish politician and Interior Minister of Finland since 2007 until 2011. She has been a Member of Parliament for the National Coalition Party since 2002.-Political career:...
announced that the actions of the police would be investigated. Police Commissioner
Police commissioner
Commissioner is a senior rank used in many police forces and may be rendered Police Commissioner or Commissioner of Police. In some organizations, the commissioner is a political appointee, and may or may not actually be a professional police officer. In these circumstances, there is often a...
Mikko Paatero said that Finnish police would increase their monitoring of YouTube and other social networking sites, and when asked whether similar attacks could take place in the future, he replied: "I badly fear it's possible."
Response
On the day of the incident, a crisis meeting was held, with government ministers, chairs of the parliamentary groups, and police officials all in attendance. The Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Finland
The Prime Minister is the Head of Government of Finland. The Prime Minister is appointed by the President, who is the Head of State. The current Prime Minister is Jyrki Katainen of the National Coalition Party.-Overview:...
Matti Vanhanen
Matti Vanhanen
Matti Taneli Vanhanen is a Finnish politician. He is a former Prime Minister of Finland and a former Chairman of the Centre Party. In the second half of 2006 he was President of the European Council. In his earlier career he was a journalist...
described it as a "tragic day" and appealed for unity in the hope "that events like these will not happen again." A national day of mourning
National day of mourning
A national day of mourning is a day marked by mourning and memorial activities observed among the majority of a country's populace. They are designated by that nation's government...
was declared for the following day, and Vanhanen travelled to Kauhajoki to meet with students.
Within days of the shooting, the police said they had received a sizeable number of tip-offs alerting the them to suspicious photographs, videos, and comments on chat room
Chat room
The term chat room, or chatroom, is primarily used by mass media to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing...
s. Finnish media reported that several bomb threats and other threatening messages were circulating among students nationwide in the few days after the shootings as well.
See also
- Gun politics in FinlandGun politics in FinlandIn Finland there are 32 privately owned firearms per 100 civilians according to the Finnish Ministry of the Interior. By the end of 2006 there were more than 1.6 million licensed firearms. Averaged among Finland's population of 5.3 million it comes to 30.5 per 100 people...
- Jokela school shootingJokela school shootingThe Jokela school massacre was a school shooting that occurred on November 7, 2007, at Jokela High School in Jokela, a town in the municipality of Tuusula, Finland. The gunman, 18-year-old student Pekka-Eric Auvinen, entered the school on that morning armed with a semi-automatic pistol. He killed...
- Sello mall shootingSello mall shootingThe Sello mall shooting occurred on the morning of 31 December 2009 shortly after 10:08 local time at the Sello Prisma hypermarket in Leppävaara district of Espoo, Finland. The shooting was believed to have been started after Ibrahim Shkupolli, the alleged gunman, found that his ex-girlfriend had a...
- Sanna SillanpääSanna SillanpääSanna Riitta Liisa Sillanpää is a Finnish woman, who shot three men to death with a rented pistol on 21 February 1999 in a shooting club on Albertinkatu, Helsinki, and wounded another man, who received lifetime injuries. One man present was not harmed...