At least nine killed in Austria school shooting, authorities say

CNN A shooter opened fire at a high school in the Austrian city of Graz government declared Tuesday killing nine people including teenagers in one of the worst rampages in the country s history Austrian police certified the fatalities raising the death toll from an earlier figure of eight The country s interior ministry informed CNN that the casualties included children between and years old The perpetrator is also dead and the school has been secured government added Several more people are seriously injured police explained Officers first responded to the reports of several suspected gunshots at the Bundesoberstufenrealgymnasium Dreiersch tzengasse school in the northwest of Graz at around a m local time a m ET Several vehicles and a police helicopter were deployed to the site The school was evacuated and the area was secured with no further danger expected the police explained on social media Austria s Chancellor Christian Stocker expressed horror at the shooting writing on X The rampage at a school in Graz is a national tragedy that has deeply shaken our entire country This inconceivable act suddenly tore young people from the life they still had ahead of them There are no words for the pain and grief he added Ursula von der Leyen the President of the European Commission explained It is formidable to bear when schools become places of death and violence Gun violence is rare in Austria along with the bulk central European countries The country s rate of firearm homicides was just per people in according to the Institute for Soundness Metrics and Evaluation compared to per people in the United States But Austria s gun ownership is higher than majority of European Union countries there are civilian firearms owned for every citizens according to the Small Arms Survey a research institute based in Switzerland A small number of high-profile violent incidents have taken place there in up-to-date years Last October the mayor of a northern Austrian town was shot dead along with another victim In February a -year-old man stabbed five passersby in southern Austria in what police noted was a random attack