School shooting in Belgrade, 9 dead

Just a bottle of petrol. Plenty of guns in Serbia apparently. Petrol bombs would be an added horror though.

OMG

I am just surprised not in America

You didn't have a childhood if you didn't try to blow a few things up in a field, that isn't a problem for me, it's access to guns that's the problem.

I was just reading the wiki article for the physicist Michio Kaku. It claims that for a high school science fair he built an “atom smasher” in his garden. Using scrap and 22 miles of wire he created a magnetic field 20000 times stronger than Earth’s own. And using it he was able to produce and photograph antimatter.

When a person - even a child - puts their mind to something they can achieve things that will certainly surprise many of us.

Unfortunately - if a person has a wish to do harm then finding ideas and resources to do so is relatively easy. Especially in the time of the internet. For example, if memory serves, "The Anarchist Cookbook" by William Powell was written around 1970. In the very early days of the internet kids in my school would print it out and share it around to seem edgy.

Among other things it contained recipes for making explosives, pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails, dynamite and instructions for building homemade weapons, such as a zip guns, blowguns, and flamethrowers.

It would not have to be petrol. A Molotov cocktail is any flammable liquid contained in an easily broken container like glass. You can make them with alcohol for example. The article did not seem to go into much detail on what exactly it was the child carried. Saying "molotov cocktail" sounds powerful in an article but it could have been something as simple as a bottle of vodka with a scrap of t-shirt stuck into it for all we know.

That said - getting petrol even underage is not generally that hard. You can steal it easily from many sources. Petrol lawnmowers. Or using a piece of rubber tubing on any vehicle where access to the petrol tank is not locked. There are also flammable fuels in many home heating appliances. Not to mention equipment on any farmland.

That might be simplifying it a little though? The articles linked above note that Serbia is awash with guns both legal and illegal. Yet shootings of this kind are rare. If access to guns was "the" problem therefore - one would have to account for the fact that this sort of horror is not happening a lot more often. What about the many 1000s of women, men and children who also have access to guns but do not do anything of this sort at all?

Plus if a person is intent on doing harm and violence - they can do so with or without access to guns. This kid for example - it is claimed - also made "molotov cocktails" of some sort. So yes if someone is intent on doing harm - it is certainly unfortunate that they have access to guns. But "the" problem whatever it is/was was seemingly something else entirely. The child in this case themselves called the police it seems - and described himself as a psychopath. Suggesting perhaps that "the" problem here is his mental state and not any particular weapon.

I know I have been teaching my children various forms of ability to do violence since they were barely toddlers. All 12 or under they can use various forms of martial arts - are fairly proficient with my bow and hunting arrows - and the oldest girl and boy have been trained on using rifles and other guns. All legally. None of this is remotely a problem however as they are not inclined to do violence on any body or to be an instigator of it for any reason.

That said though - the fact the father in this case kept the weapons in a safe but the child knew the code - is a massive oversight of incompetence and negligence. While I enjoy using and training with firearms - I as a family man and father have absolutely zero wish or desire to own one myself. I recognize the responsibility ownership entails, and I do not particularly want it. As the father in this story has been arrested - it seems he will be held accountable for this tragedy too.

That sounds very vague and ominous. I hope there are good reasons for any such changes they finally implement - and they are not just knee jerk things done for optics. After all if the entire population of a country is going to pay for changes with any of their securities, rights or freedoms they would want to be sure what they get is worth the price, or has any desired effect at all.

Random drug and alcohol testing in school children for example? Do any EU states do this at the moment across the general school population - or specific parts of it? If so how and why? I am quite ignorant of the laws around the EU on this. How would such a suggestion go down here in Ireland? I remember a 2005 paper I once read which I will look for after this sentence which suggested doing so in the UK for example would probably cause harms while being dubious of both the benefits and the human rights of children. https://www.drugsandalcohol.ie/3907/

I have not followed the case closely enough to know myself - but are the reforms related to this shooting directly? For example were drugs, alcohol and "certain sites" on the internet deemed to be causal or an exacerbation in this specific situation? Or are they dealing with some already existing wider issue for which this shooting was just a spring board? I have to say my knowledge of Serbia in general is low and I know of no people from there. A good friend who is Bosnian would be the closest but I have not talked to him since this story broke.

Absolutely horrific.

Those poor kids. **** disgusting thing to do.

RIP