Authorities in Turkey say a 14-year-old killed nine people and wounded 13 others in a targeted attack of violence at a middle school on Wednesday, just a day after a former student at a vocational school wounded 16 people with a pump action shotgun.
Officials say the 14-year-old is believed to have used guns that belonged to his father, a former police officer. The teen allegedly carried five different firearms and seven ammunition magazines, though it’s unclear how many of those guns were actually used in the attack, which targeted two classrooms at the middle school.
Education unions have said violence in Turkish schools is on the rise and have called on the government to increase precautions and provide counseling for children in need.
After Tuesday’s attack, some unions called for a strike to protest what they called a lack of measures to prevent school violence and to demand increased support for struggling students.
Last month a former student stabbed a teacher in a classroom at a vocational high school in Istanbul. The teacher later died in the hospital. Another teacher and a student were injured as well.
Turkey has very restrictive gun laws, including police approval, mandatory registration, and mandatory storage requirements. In order to be approved to possess a firearm, applicants must be at least 21, pass a mental and physical health exam and submit a medical report from an approved healthcare provider, and document their need for a firearm; whether for hunting, sport/recreational shooting, or self-defense. Turkey essentially operates as a “may issue” system when it comes to permitting firearm ownership for self-defense; there is no general right to keep or carry a gun for self-protection, but permission can be granted when an applicant provides documentation showing they’re at a heightened risk of harm because of their profession or personal circumstances.
As of 2021 there were about 4-million licensed guns in Turkey, according to one gun control organization. That same group, though, claimed that there were as many as 20-million unlicensed firearms throughout the country; yet another demonstration that restrictive gun laws don’t have much of an impact on illegal gun possession and criminal misuse of firearms.
Data from public prosecutors’ offices across the country have shown that at least 137,617 individuals were investigated for carrying unlicensed firearms in 2024, a sharp rise from 54,198 in 2020.
The online sale of firearms at reasonable prices has made it possible even for minors to obtain weapons.
Not legally, of course.
Gun control advocates here in the United States often claim that we’re the only nation in the world that has to worry about mass shootings. That’s hardly the case, according to Dr. John Lott and the Crime Prevention Research Center. Lott’s data, released in 2020, shows that between 1998 and 2017 there were 2,772 cases where four or more people were murdered in a public place and 5,764 shooters outside the United States, compared to 62 attacks and 66 shooters within the U.S. during that same time period.
These incidents are sadly all too common across the globe, including in countries like Turkey with very restrictive gun control laws. Lott concluded that, despite the arguments to the contrary from gun control groups, “the more guns owned in a country, the lower the frequency and severity of mass public shootings.”
Banning guns is a simplistic response to the atrocity of mass murder, and while it might be emotionally satisfying to some folks it does nothing to make the public any safer. Turkey already makes it incredibly difficult to legally possess a firearm, but it’s clear that those restrictive gun laws were no impediment to the troubled individuals who carried out their attacks this week.
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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