Finland mourns victims of school shooting

HELSINKI FINLAND - Flags across Finland hung at half-mast on Thursday in mourning for eight people killed by an 18-year-old gunman at a school hours after he posted a video on YouTube foreshadowing a massacre there.

A principal, school nurse and six pupils of Jokela High School were killed when student Pekka-Eric Auvinen opened fire with a .22 caliber handgun in the middle of the school day. He then shot himself in the head.

The teenage gunman, who had a keen interest in war history and extremist movements, died late on Wednesday.

On Thursday police said that one of the dead was the nurse at the school in Tuusula municipality, a town of 35,000 some 60 km (40 miles) from Helsinki. Initially, they had believed seven students and one staff member had been killed.

"It feels so unreal," Helsinki kindergarten teacher Charlotta Andersson said. "You hear about these things happening in America, but not in Finland."

The tragedy in the normally peaceful Nordic nation should make Finland reconsider its campaign against European Union plans to tighten gun ownership laws for youngsters, a senior cabinet member told reporters.

"In my opinion we should reconsider this very seriously," Trade Minister Mauri Pekkarinen said. "I believe we have to critically think over Finland's position one more time. I am ready to take this up in the government."

Although Finland has the world's third-highest per capita gun ownership, deadly shootings are extremely rare because they have a surprisingly tolerant and peaceful society.

Auvinen, who only last month obtained the permit for the gun he used in the shooting, walked "systematically" through the school's corridors, firing into classroom after classroom, according to a teacher at the school.

The YouTube video by Auvinen, set to a hard-driving song called "Stray Bullet," shows a still photo of what appears to be Jokela High School. The photo breaks apart to reveal a red-tinted picture of a man pointing a handgun at the camera.

The clip, which police said was made by the gunman, is entitled "Jokela High School Massacre - 11/7/2007."

LIVING IN ISOLATION

Across Finland, flags were half-staff and many churches planned services to remember the victims.

Tech-savvy Finns set up mobile telephone text message chains to organize memorials for the victims.

"In the evening at 6 p.m., we are lighting a candle in the kitchen window to remember the victims of school killings. I hope you will join us to remember young pupils and the teacher, who only on Wednesday morning believed in the future," read one such message.

Some Finns said the tragedy argued for tougher gun controls.

"Maybe we were living in a bubble until now and this is a wake-up call. Our country is no more perfect than any other one ... and we can't pretend it is," Helsinki resident Mikko Pyysalo said.

The last major attack in Finland occurred in 2002 when a man killed himself and six others in a bomb blast at a shopping mall in Helsinki. There was another school shooting in 1989 when a 14-year-old pupil shot dead two middle-school children in Rauma, western Finland.