Europeans love to posture over their saintly social structures, especially when it comes to gun control. So, naturally, the world media is attempting to spin this fatal school shooting as somehow being the fault of guns, which are fairly common “by European standards”. Which is only true if you pretend that Switzerland isn’t European:
An 18-year-old gunman killed eight people at a high school in southern Finland on Wednesday, then shot himself but survived, police said. Police said the gunman was taken to hospital with serious wounds and they had the situation “under control” after they surrounded Jokela High School in Tuusula, some 30 miles north of the capital, Helsinki.
I suggest that banning schools would be a much more effective way to prevent school shootings. Unsurprisingly, the kid was a self-described “social Darwinist” and a natural selection enthusiast; what do you think would be the odds against him being an atheist as well?
The unnamed gunman apparently posted a video called “Jokela high school massacre” on the YouTube website, the latest of dozens he listed over the last fortnight. Set to a hard-driving song called “Stray Bullet”, it shows a boy standing with a gun pointed towards the camera.
Going only by the username Sturmgeist89, he calls himself a “social darwinist”. “I am prepared to fight and die for my cause,” read a posting by a user of the same name.
“I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection.”
What was that about no one killing “in the name of Darwin”?
UPDATE – And we have confirmation:
Name: Pekka-Eric Auvinen
Age: 18
Male from Finland.I am a cynical existentialist, antihuman humanist, antisocial socialdarwinist, realistic idealist and godlike atheist.
Well, I’m certainly shocked! I was sure he’d turn out to be an Episcopalian. PZ and company, as you had to expect, are in full-blown No True Atheist mode.