In Finland, another similarity in two mass killings
Both men killed themselves after opening fire at a school with guns likely from the same town.
KAUHAJOKI, Finland - The gunman in Finland's latest school shooting most likely bought his gun in the same town where an 18-year-old went on a rampage less than a year ago, police said yesterday, adding to the list of eerie similarities between the massacres.
Matti Saari, 22, bought a .22-caliber gun in Jokela, about 155 miles from his home, and on Tuesday killed 10 people and himself at a vocational college, police said. In November, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, 18, most likely bought a gun at the same store and killed eight people and himself, they said.
The lead investigator said the shootings were so similar that the gunmen might have been in contact.
"I would consider it a miracle if we did not find some connecting link," Jari Neulaniemi was quoted as telling the Finnish news agency STT. But authorities said they did not know whether Saari had copied Auvinen's shooting.
Earlier, police had detailed similarities between the two cases: Both gunmen had posted violent clips on YouTube, both were fascinated by the 1999 Columbine school shootings in Colorado, each attacked his own school, both died after shooting themselves in the head.
Yesterday, the government pledged to tighten Finland's gun laws and keep mentally unstable people from obtaining firearms. The move came a day after Saari opened fire at a vocational college.
Although Saari's 10 victims included eight female students, police said there was no indication women were targeted, saying they made up the majority of students at the Kauhajoki School of Hospitality, 180 miles northwest of Helsinki.
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen visited the college and said it was time to consider restricting access to guns in a country with more than 1.6 million firearms in private hands. "We need to study if people should get access to handguns so freely," Vanhanen said.
Interior Minister Anne Holmlund said the government was working on a proposal to tighten gun laws by giving police greater powers to examine gun applicants' health records.
Finland ranks - along with the United States - among the top five nations in the world in civilian gun ownership.