Finland's Gun Culture Facing New Questions

Details of Deadly School Shooting Released

HELSINKI, Nov. 8 -- Deep inside a mothballed nuclear fallout shelter in this Nordic capital city, the sound of muffled pistol fire thumps through the walls. About a half-dozen Finns -- including a young blond man and a briefcase-toting businessman on his way home from work -- don ear protection and line up at the cash register to buy cardboard targets. Before long, they're at the firing line, blasting away.

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The right to bear arms is deeply ingrained in Finnish culture, and gun clubs are a social fixture. West Shooters, located in an old bunker a few blocks from Helsinki's luxury shopping streets, counts 300 regular members and is a popular place for bachelor parties and corporate events.

"Finnish people have always respected their guns," said Petri Oinonen, a member of the club who also sells firearms at a gun shop across town. "This was a very rural country until World War II. In every family, there was a gun or two because they were needed."

In Finland, there are an estimated 56 guns for every 100 people, according to the Small Arms Survey, a research organization based in Switzerland. That figure is higher than for any other countries except the United States and Yemen. In comparison with those two nations, however, Finland has largely avoided the bloodshed and crime associated with firearms, at least until this week.

Now, news that an 18-year-old used one of the country's easily available handguns to kill eight people in a suburban high school less than an hour's drive north of here has some Finns wondering if the country's gun laws should be tightened.

But people at the firing range suggested things wouldn't change much. Markku Alhanen, the manager, said licensing requirements should include a mental-health background check. Members at his club monitor such things informally, he said, keeping a close eye on fellow members and quickly reporting any unusual behavior. "That sort of guy would have been noticed here, and somebody would have said something to the police," he said.

A day after the shooting in Tuusula, police released new details of the crime that suggested the young shooter contemplated a much bloodier massacre than he managed to carry out. They cited evidence that he tried but failed to set the building on fire and walked through the halls with nearly 400 rounds of ammunition.

Pekka-Eric Auvinen shot each of his victims in the head or upper body with a .22-caliber Sig Sauer Mosquito pistol as he roamed the three floors of the yellow lakeside high school, investigators said. After spraying a burst of gunfire into the cafeteria, Auvinen ended the blood bath in an adjoining restroom, where he aimed at his own skull the last bullet he fired, police said.

Finnish authorities said they were able to reconstruct what transpired during the approximately 30-minute rampage at the Jokela secondary school, but exactly what prompted Auvinen to kill six classmates, his principal and the school nurse remained unclear.

Police said they were closely examining hundreds of Internet missives and images created by Auvinen, including a graphic YouTube video that he posted the day before the attack in which he spelled out plans to carry out a mass killing at the school.

"I have no mercy for the scum of the earth, the pathetic human race," he said in the video, which was removed from the Web site hours after the shooting. "Hate, I'm so full of it and I love it. That is one thing I really love."

Investigators said he came from an "ordinary" family and had no criminal record. "He's clearly a lonely person who held strong anger against society and very radical thoughts," Jan-Olof Nyholm, detective chief superintendent for the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, said after a news conference.