The deadly university rampage in Virginia that killed 33 people sent shock waves around the world Tuesday with newspapers and talk shows delving into the American psyche and raising questions about lax gun controls in the United States.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said the shooting underscored the problems of a U.S. “gun culture,” but the gun control debate echoed loudest across Europe, which has some of the toughest gun laws in the world.
Prime Minister Tony Blair offered his condolences to the victims’ families.
“I would like to express on behalf of Britain and the British people our profound sadness at what has happened and to send the American people and most especially, of course, the families of the victims, our sympathy and our prayers,” Blair said.
‘Shocked and saddened’
Most expressed shock at the shooting but few said they were surprised — criticizing the availability of guns in the United States, lax gun controls and the number of Americans who cling to the constitutional right that allows them to bear arms.
“The Queen was shocked and saddened to hear of the news of the shooting in Virginia,” Buckingham Palace said. Queen Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, are scheduled to visit Virginia May 3-4.
British Home Office Minister, Tony McNulty, earned a masters degree in political science at Virginia Tech in 1982.
“I think if this does prompt a serious and reflective debate on gun issues and gun law in the states then some good may come from this woeful tragedy,” McNulty said.
Many families expressed relief when they heard their children were safe. Some were still waiting for news.
“He sounded OK. I think they had been very shocked all day — struggling to get in touch with their friends,” Charles Barnwell of Birmingham, England, whose son George, 20, was locked in his dormitory with eight friends during the shooting.
‘We took action,’ Australian PM says
Howard, the Australian prime minister, staked his political leadership on pushing through tough laws on gun ownership in his country after a lone gunman went on one of the world’s deadliest killing sprees 11 years ago in his country.
“We took action to limit the availability of guns and we showed a national resolve that the gun culture that is such a negative in the United States would never become a negative in our country,” he said.
The Times of London ran an editorial delving into the American psyche and the weak gun laws across the country.
“Why, we ask, do Americans continue to tolerate gun laws and a culture that seems to condemn thousands of innocents to death every year, when presumably, tougher restrictions, such as those in force in European countries, could at least reduce the number?”
Gun crime is extremely rare in Britain, and handguns are completely illegal. The ban is so strictly enforced that Britain’s Olympic pistol shooting team is barred from practicing in its own country.
Britain’s 46 homicides involving firearms was the lowest total since the late 1980s. New York City, with 8 million people compared to 53 million in England and Wales, recorded at least 579 homicides last year.
“What exactly triggered the massacre in Virginia is unclear but the fundamental reason is often the perpetrator’s psychological problems in combination with access to weapons,” Swedish daily Goteborgs-Posten commented.
No private arms in China
The shooting drew intense coverage by media in China, in part because the school has a relatively large Chinese student body and because U.S. reports said the gunman may have been Chinese or Asian.
Private citizens are forbidden from owning guns in China.
“Why are there were so many shooting incidents in American schools and universities?” said a comment posted on the popular Internet portal Sohu.com. “People should think why an American-educated student would take revenge against America?”
Yuan Peng, an American studies expert, was quoted by state-run China Daily as saying the shooting illustrated America’s problems with gun control and a lack of security at American universities.
“This incident reflects the problem of gun control in America,” said Yuan, from the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, a Beijing-based think tank.
Only 7 percent of the more than 26,000 students at Virginia Tech are foreign, according to the school web site. But Chinese undergraduate and graduate students comprise nearly a third of that. There are about 600 or so students and teachers and their family members from China at the school, said Xue, the Chinese student union president.
‘Self-defense imprinted on its DNA’
In Italy, leading daily Corriere della Sera’s ran an opinion piece entitled “Guns at the Supermarket” — a critical view of the U.S. gun lobby and the ease with which guns can be purchased.
“The latest attack on a U.S. campus will shake up America, maybe it will provoke more vigorous reactions than in the past, but it won’t change the culture of a country that has the notion of self-defense imprinted on its DNA and which considers the right of having guns inalienable,” Corriere wrote in its front-page story.
In Italy, there are three types of licenses for gun ownership: for personal safety, target practice and skeet shooting, and hunting. Authorization is granted by the police. To obtain a gun for personal safety, the owner must be an adult and have a “valid” reason.
Several Italian graduate students at Virginia Tech recounted how they barricaded themselves inside a geology department building not far from the scene of the shooting.