Finnish School Shooting

Blog # 4
Simon Prather
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-finland-shooting.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin

Ruthless violence is unfortuntently a part of our global community. Public shootings are not anything new, but each time they happen they are just as tragic as the last. The United States has experienced public massacres such as the shootings at Virginia Tech, and the Columbine. Both of these devastating incidences have made innocent people, in what should be a safe environment, targets of murder.
School shootings do not just happen in the United States. Recently there were ten people killed during a shooting in Kauhajoki, Finland. This was the countries second such attack in the past year. Saari, the killer, had his threat posted on the Internet, prior to his actual attack. On his site he had menacing comments, along with a video of him welding a gun. Jukka Forsberg, a school maintenance worker says "a cold-blooded shooter entered the building with an automatic pistol and started cutting down students".
The post secondary school that focuses on catering, and tourism, teaches students around twenty years old. The school enrolled one hundred and fifty students, and has forty teachers. Schools are meant to be a safe place, offering learning and community. This shooting has, yet again, threatened the idea of educational systems globally.
I think that governments should start looking more closely at gun control. The prime minister of Finland has actually considered banning private handguns altogether. I think that in the United States should do the same. Europe has recently adopted stricter gun laws, however, prime minister Matti Vanhanen does not think its enough. I agree, there needs to be more action taken on a global level.