Three 12-year-old children were shot at and wounded at a school in Finland in the early hours of Tuesday by a shooter aged 12. The suspect has been caught taken into custody, according to the police.
The underaged victims have been rushed to the hospital and no further updates have been given at the time of filing this report.
From the reports gathered from the local municipality, the school shooting had happened at the Viertola school in Vantaa, a suburb of the capital Helsinki. The school boasts of about 800 pupils ranging from first to ninth grade and a staff of 90 respectively.
Finland’s Interior Minister, Mari Rantanen had in a reaction to the incident, posted on X saying,
“The day started in a horrifying way. There has been a shooting incident at the Viertola school in Vantaa. I can only imagine the pain and worry that many families are experiencing at the moment. The suspected perpetrator has been caught.”
Over the years, there have been increased reports of school shootings in Finland, though in a much smaller scale than in the U.S. this has led to the country’s gun policy getting spotlighted and put to scrutiny.
A student, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, had in 2007 gunned down six students, the school nurse, the principal, and finally, himself using a handgun at Jokela High School, located near Helsinki.
Again in 2008, a student, Matti Saari, had opened fire at a vocational school in Kauhajoki, killimg nine fellow students and a male staff member before killing himself. The school had been situated in northwest Finland.
The Finnish government consolidated its gun legislation in 2010, introducing an aptitude test for all firearms license applicants. The age limit for applicants had also changed to 20 from 18.
In Finland, there are over 1.5 million licensed firearms and around 430,000 licensed holders in a population of 5.6 million people —a significant number given that Finland is a country where hunting and target shooting are approved activities.
