Shooter kills ten at Austrian high school

A gunman killed at least nine people on Tuesday during an attack on Dreierschützengasse High School in the southeastern city of Graz, officials said. Six women and three men were killed, and 12 more people were injured, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said at a Tuesday press conference.  A tenth person later reportedly died at the hospital. 

Who was the attacker? Ten bodies were discovered at the high school. The suspected gunman was a local 21-year-old man who was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a school bathroom, local police said. Authorities did not immediately identify the suspected gunman. The suspected attacker was a former student of the school where he attended, but did not graduate, Karner said. Two guns were collected from the crime scene, and both were legally owned by the suspect, police told the media. The gunman's motive remains unclear, authorities added.

How are leaders responding?

• Officials planned three days of national mourning for the attack, government leaders said. During that time, the national flag would fly at half-mast. Austrians would observe one minute of silence on Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. local time to honor the victims of the attack, officials added.

• Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker described the attack as a dark day in the country’s history and a national tragedy.

• European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen acknowledged the attack while speaking Tuesday morning, describing it as the worst thing for a community to experience. Schools are symbols of youth and hope, and it’s impossible to bear when schools become places of violence and death, she said.

How often do shootings occur in Austria? Mass gun violence is low in Austria and generally uncommon across central Europe. The country has suffered three mass shootings since 2000, according to a gun violence data resource run by the European Union. All three attacks combined left 10 people dead, according to the data. However, the country has also experienced other small-scale gun violence. For example, Kirchberg ob der Donau Mayor Franz Hofer was shot dead last October along with another man.