Campaigners in Germany and the US are calling for gun laws to be tightened after 26 people were killed in two mass shootings just 12 hours apart.

Sixteen people lost their lives in Winnenden near Stuttgart in Germany when a 17 year old gunman used a Beretta semi-automatic pistol from his father’s collection to kill 3 teachers and 9 students at Albertville Secondary School on Wednesday 11 March. Eight of the students were girls. The gunman also killed three passers-by in the nearby town of Wendlingen and then committed suicide after a shoot-out with the police.

The minimum age for handgun ownership in Germany is 25. However, legal owners are allowed to store their handguns at home. Effectively this makes the weapons accessible to other family members, as well as to burglars or intruders.

IANSA members are calling for Chancellor Angela Merkel to examine how the gun law can be tightened to require handguns to be stored outside the home. Some would like to see an outright ban on handguns, as introduced by the UK after the 1996 school shooting in Dunblane, Scotland.

Ten hours earlier, at around 4pm on Tuesday 10 March, ten people were shot dead in Alabama, US by a man armed with a SKS assault rifle, a Bushmaster assault rifle and a .38 caliber handgun. The gunman shot passers-by, women, two babies and his own mother before turning the gun on himself. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence in Washington said Alabama has some of the weakest gun laws in the United States, permitting guns to be sold without background checks and the carrying of weapons in public places such as workplaces and college campuses.

President Bush had revoked Clinton’s Assault Weapons Ban, which came into existence following the Columbine shooting in April 1999. IANSA members in the US are urging President Obama to reinstate the ban to commemorate the tenth anniversary.