Prague’s police chief says a lone gunman opened fire in a university, killing at least 14 people and injuring 25 more.

A student opened fire Thursday at a university in Prague, killing at least 14 people, officials said, and injuring more than 20 in the Czech Republic’s worst mass shooting.

The bloodshed took place in the philosophy department building of Charles University, where the shooter was a student, Prague Police Chief Martin Vondrasek said. The gunman also died, authorities said. His name has not been released.

Vondrasek said in the evening that 14 people had died and 25 were injured, after earlier reporting that 15 had died and 24 were hurt. He didn’t explain the change. Authorities warned that the death toll could rise.

Police gave no details about the victims or a possible motive for the shooting at the building located near the Vltava River in Jan Palach Square. Czech Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said investigators do not suspect a link to any extremist ideology or groups.

Vondrasek said police believe the gunman killed his father earlier Thursday in his hometown of Hostoun, just west of Prague, and that he had also been planning to kill himself. He didn’t elaborate.

    • RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml
      84·
      11 months ago

      The fact that Czechia has similar gun laws to America yet still has significantly less gun crime comparatively shows to me that the guns really might not be the problem, actually.

          • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
            9·
            11 months ago

            As a gun owner, all I needed was to pass a safety course to get a permit.

            That’s it.

            Safety course as a joke too. I took harder drivers tests than that.

            • Thetimefarm@lemm.ee
              1·
              11 months ago

              Lol in NH you can walk in and buy a handgun just by filling out a form. Before covid you could usually get everything done same day but now the system is backed up and slow. Still only takes a couple days to get whatever handgun you want though, and rifles are way easier to get.

      • DosDude👾@retrolemmy.com
        121·
        11 months ago

        Are you sure? Let’s compare gun violence in France with a country with opposite gun laws, like the united states.

        Gun laws will never stop all gun violence. But it sure does reduce it a whole lot. Just look at Australia. They banned guns after a big shooting, and guess what? Gun violence went down. I wonder if it might be correlated.

        • chitak166@lemmy.world
          64·
          11 months ago

          Let’s compare gun violence in France with a country with opposite gun laws, like the united states.

          Why not the Czech Republic?

          • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
            42·
            11 months ago

            Let’s.

            How many mass shootings have there been in Czechia this year and the previous, say, 5?

            And how many in the US?

            • chitak166@lemmy.world
              65·
              11 months ago

              According to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

              France had 2.33 gun deaths per 100,000 population in 2014.

              Czech Republic had 1.64 gun deaths per 100,000 population in 2016.

              2.33 is 42.07% more than 1.64. So France had ~42% more gun-related deaths in 2014 than the Czech Republic did in 2016. If you have more recent figures, please share.

              You tried moving the goalposts from “let’s compare gun violence” to “how many mass shootings have there been” but I didn’t let you.

              Please try to argue in good-faith if you want to be taken seriously by rational people.

    • plactagonic@sopuli.xyz
      21·
      11 months ago

      No

      The gun laws in our country are solid. This attack is really uncommon.

      You can’t decide to do this and buy a gun. Gun licence is tedious process, psychotests, handling courses, legislation tests… By the time you would get a gun (probably didn’t get it with these motive’s) you would kill using something different or didn’t do it at all.

      This happened always when someone with licence get psychologycaly unstable. But first attack with legally acquired gun is from 2015. This is third attack with legal guns since then.

      Then there are some cases with illegal guns but even they are rare.