BERLIN — The Austrian government on Wednesday proposed a bundle of new laws on private gun ownership, eight days after the deadliest school shooting in the country’s history.
The measures include raising the minimum age to own some firearms, including handguns, to 25 from 21, strengthening the mandatory psychological test that must be passed to buy a gun, and instituting a four-week waiting period between the purchase and the delivery of a first weapon.
The government also wants to make it easier for the results of psychological evaluations to be more easily shared among government agencies.
“Nothing we do, including what we have decided today, will bring back the 10 people we lost last Tuesday,” Chancellor Christian Stocker of Austria said. “We are painfully aware of this. But I can promise you one thing: We will learn from this tragedy.”
Advertisement
The suspect in the shooting, who police said had been found dead in an apparent suicide, was a 21-year-old former student of the school who had dropped out. His identity has not been disclosed because of Austrian privacy laws. Nine students and a teacher died in the attack. The motive is unclear, but police have confirmed the suspect’s fascination with past school shootings and his reverence for their perpetrators.
The man failed the psychological test required as part of the assessment for military service, and those who knew him described him as conspicuously antisocial. Yet he was able to buy the guns that he used — a Glock pistol and a shotgun that he had modified — legally.
Lawmakers are expected to approve the new rules by a big majority, a sign of how deeply the attack in Graz, Austria’s second largest city, shocked the country.
Advertisement
Austria has some of the laxest gun ownership laws in Europe. Under current rules, the shotgun the shooter used can be bought by anyone older than 18. The suspect was able to buy the handgun after passing a psychological test.
There are roughly 1.5 million privately owned firearms registered in Austria, a country of just more than 9 million, which are often used for hunting or sport shooting. Stocker said that hunters would not be affected by the new rules.
The proposals also include tougher restrictions that are not directly related to guns. The government wants to double the number of school psychologists in the next three years and make it mandatory for students who drop out to undergo psychological assessments. It is also seeking to restrict children’s access to social media.
The broad acceptance of the push to strengthen the country’s gun laws was evident when Herbert Kickl, the firebrand leader of the far-right Freedom Party, who typically opposes most government proposals, spoke in parliament on the issue Monday. Instead of challenging the new controls, he insisted only that the government take more time before it comes up with recommendations.
“I don’t think now is the time to pledge or announce that this or that measure will solve a problem,” he told lawmakers.
The investigation into the attack last week has not concluded. On Tuesday, police said they had found five clips for the pistol on the shooter’s body and an additional 18 bullets in his backpack. He appears to have shot the handgun roughly 50 times before killing himself in a school laboratory, about a minute after officers arrived at the scene.
Advertisement
Police also confirmed that the man posted a photo of his lower body, taken in a school bathroom, on social media immediately before the attack.
Stocker said that the government would make 20 million euros (about $23 million) available for the families of the victims to handle costs such as funerals.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.