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Merkel urges stricter gun checks after shooting
15 Mar 2009 18:34:23 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Recasts, adds Schaeuble, European ministers' meeting)

By Kerstin Gehmlich

BERLIN, March 15 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for greater supervision of her country's gun laws on Sunday, after a teenager shot dead 15 people last week before killing himself.

Merkel said she had been stunned by the massacre in the southwestern town of Winnenden, where 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer shot 15 people with his father's pistol, including 12 at his former school.

Merkel told Deutschlandfunk radio it was crucial that rules about the storage of weapons and ammunition were applied.

"Experts will certainly consider: Would it be possible to ensure (the compliance to rules) even further through unannounced controls or other means?" she said.

She did not say whether such measures would include checks at individuals' homes.

The killings in Winnenden has sparked calls by some politicians to tighten Germany's gun laws. Seventy-eight percent of Germans favour banning guns from private homes, an Emnid survey for Bild am Sonntag newspaper showed on Sunday.

But Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, a member of Merkel's Christian Democrats, told Reuters last week that there was no need for Germany to change its gun laws.

Kretschmer shot many of his victims in the head with his father's legally registered Beretta.

His father, a member of a shooting club, had 15 guns at home. Fourteen of those were locked in a gun closet as required by law but the Beretta was in the bedroom, officials said.

Germany toughened gun laws in 2002 after a 19-year-old shot dead 16 people and himself at a high school in east Germany.

Schaeuble was sceptical on Sunday about proposals by some politicians that guns should only be stored at shooting clubs.

"We already have one of the strictest weapons laws in the world," he said on the sidelines of a meeting in Berlin with interior ministers from the European Union's six largest states. "We now have to check whether rules were adhered to in this case."

Schaeuble also discussed the issue of youth violence with his counterparts from Britain, France, Italy, Poland and Spain, who were joined by new U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. He said youth crime should be on the agenda EU-wide.

The meeting to also discuss the fight against crime and terrorism, was not expected to yield concrete measures.

Merkel said she was also considering what could be done to limit access to violent video games, but did not give details.

"The lesson is that we must be attentive to all young people -- that's true for parents and educators," Merkel said. "We must do all to prevent children from having access to weapons and from them having to face too much violence."

Neighbours and classmates had described Kretschmer as a loner with a fondness for violent computer games. (Additional reporting by Sabine Siebold; Editing by Katie Nguyen)


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Last updated:Sun Mar 15 18:36:38 2009