Rampage has echoes of school horrors
Friday’s massacre is the third horrific gun attack by a teenager in Germany since 2002.
And the deadly shooting spree came 14 years after the country tightened its gun controls.
They changed the laws after 19-year-old Robert Steinhäuser killed 16 people before taking his own life at a school in Erfurt, in eastern Germany, in 2002.
Masked and dressed in black, the expelled former pupil walked through classrooms gunning down 13 teachers, two schoolgirls and one of the first policemen who arrived on the scene.
Seven years later, 16 people were slain when 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer went on the rampage.
His killing spree began at his former school, Albertville Secondary in Winnenden – a prosperous commuter town near Stuttgart.
It ended in a nearby town when Kretschmer killed himself after police had wounded him.
Now, Germany has some of the most stringent gun control laws in Europe, according to the US Library of Congress.
You must have licence to own a gun in the country.
Applicants must generally be at least 18 years old and prove they have a reason for needing a weapon.
German authorities can prohibit anyone who is dependent on drugs or alcohol or is mentally ill from obtaining a gun licence.
People under 25 also have to undergo a psychiatric test.
Almost 5.5million firearms are owned privately in Germany by around 1.4million people, according the country’s the Firearms Register of 2013.
But there are up to 20million illegal firearms in the country.