Shit we have just had some guy open up in a shopping mall here in the city of Alphen aan de Rijn (20 mins by car  from where I live).

At least 6 dead at the moment suspect was probably Dutch as he is described as having long blond hair and dressed in camo pants with a bomber jacket.

Witnesses are describing a full auto machienegun. This would mean its not likely to be a legal gun, full auto is possible here but very difficult and the most easaly availeble balck market gun would be a AK.

If turns out to be a legal gun we are truely fucked

Anyway link to the Dutch news: link (in Dutch)

Prayers and best wishes to the wounded and those who lost family and friends.

Hoping that the firearm was "illegal"... but have no doubts that it's legal status will not slow down the anti types who will latch on to this to push for futher regulation/bans.

All the best....

ETA: Link to news report in English.

5 shoppers killed....

Thanks for the sympathy guys.

The shooter was a member of a gun club. Its not clear if the gun used was leagally held, the police describe it as a MG and that means it almost certaily was illegal.

I have really worked hard the past couple of years to get the gun laws relaxed a bit, we almost had supressors/folding stocks/cowboy action shooting and Airsoft legal with the upcoming weapons law change.

I'll try and work this situation to the best of my ability only I suspect the Fudd element will throw us under the bus, I just hope we dont loose our EBR's.

They are of course not effective, but it is not stopping the anti's here from caling for the banning of all guns and shooting clubs (and yes they mean ALL guns)
Fucking liberal politicians are already like "I'm amazed you can take you guns home from the shooting range"

Like I said I'm already on it and trying to assemble a good team to tackle the situation.

My gut feeling is telling me the shooter was off his meds or something:"
-Very young at 24 years of age
-Incoherent goodby note
-Lived across from the mall
-Not much planning
-Smoked a lot of canabis, while canabis is not very conducive to violent behavior a lot of scizo's use it as a form of self medication to quiet themselves down.
-Relatively low body count (6) for a mass shooting in a busy mall on Saturday (guy  had multiple mags)
-Report say he was also just randomly shooting  

Bullshit. The drug laws have nothing to do with this situation.

And please don't try a silly initiative to assess this situation yourself. We have a national shoothers federation, they can and will do their best to handle this. Half-baked initatives will only make things worse.

With all due respect the KNSA (Dutch Shooting Federation) hasnt been exactly gun friendly (exept for Olympic stuf). In the past they have activly worked against some shooting groups (the KNSA has a defeacto legal monopoly on what sports are considerd shooting sports and thus who can get guns for their sport)

Please dont call anything I do half baked as I am more serious than that (cant really go into deatils here). I will disregard the comments above but if you want to contact me to see how we can work together  send me a PM via this site as this situation is important.

I do appreciate the gravity of this situation. Although the KNSA might have had some issues with some newer parts of our beloved sport, this is mostly a thing of the past. The new head of the KNSA is a lot more open to change than the old one was.

And since they have a large network, I would suggest to let them handle the situation. Behind the scnenes, they have been very capable in cooling off some cases in a very early phase.

Dude, substance abuse is a whole other ball game than our drug laws. It's not like we hand out cocaine overhere.

And yes, your government totally overreacted after Dunblane. And of course I'm afraid something like it might happen overhere. But I'm quite sure individual initiatives won't help. What we need is a well connected organisation that starts making calls and shaking hands tomorrow morning.

Update:

The guy was comitted into a mental institution in 2006. He was suicidal and made comments about going on a shooting spree.

Police should have taken his licence away

On the bad side it looks like he converted his legal semi guns to FA.

I dont really have a problem with our drug laws but I do have a problem when pot smoking suicidal nutjobs who have been in a mental home are allowed a gun license while off duty cops are forced to go shopping unarmed. In al seriousnes the heavy pot smoking was a clear indication of (him trying to supress mental) problems, the subject is well documented here.

Like I kind of said in the PM, I'm not some 'loon' who is jumping into something without any planning or knowlage, its important to work together as much as possible only I fear the KNSA is ill equipped to handle the situation properly (in the past this was most certainly the case).

well.. I do firmly believe that an active shooter using and shooting a full auto in full auto is far less dangerous, in term of bodycount, than a wacko accurately plinking one victim after antoher in semi..



now go explain that to stupid antigunners..

First, my thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. RIP.

So the shooter was a wacko whos guns should have been taken away a long time ago, but govt. and police failed again (Germany had such a case recently too, where some lawyer bitch went ballistic and killed a couple of people in a hospital with her .22 that she should have given up a few years ago as she left the gun club).

The problem in Germany too is that the shooting associations fight each other. The DSB pres. , Mr. Ambacher, was on national TV, telling into the camera that shooters don't need "larger calibers", meaning 9 mil and above. The DSB is pro-air gun and pro-.22 only. Then there is the BDS, they support all the fun stuff, such as IPSC and cowboy action shoot. BDMP is the police and military shooters, also supporting larger calibers. There are also several smaller ones (like BLDS), without enough members to really make a difference.

If you look on the web you have different platforms and forums competing, the FvLW is fighting the FWR and so on. Instead of forming one big lobby these guys have nothing better to do than fighting each other. If they would stick the fuck together they really could make a difference here in Germany. Oh well...



Damn right brother. But what do they know? Never fired a gun, no previous military experience and no clue about what the fuck is going on in this world.

Just my $ .02

Mike sends.

We have the same problem here. The cops recently arrested a suspected serial killer who used his legal Glock 19 to kill people. A representative of one of the largest gun dealers in the country then told the media that the Glock 19 is an assassin's weapon that has no sporting use. This store deals mainly in fudd guns so they won't lose any money if pistols are banned.

The hunters association has also been known to throw sport shooters under the bus to save themselves and the national sport shooters association has actively fought the Swedish IPSC association.

Swedish gun owners are extremely divided and I fear that it's only a matter of time before our rights are restricted even further.

Looks like we are facing the same problem. As soon as they outlaw guns here I fucking resign and get the fuck back to Texas.

Tanks guys for the sympathy.

Looks like we have the same problem all over Europe, our national shooters assosiation the KNSA has activly opposed many shooting sports. I seem to remeber them in the past saying that people intrested in different shooting sports were suspicious and should not be allowesd to own guns Their current move of blindly blaming the licencing officer is a bad move tacticaly as it served no perpose other than to piss off the officers in charge of firearms policy here (who have shown themselves to be reasonable in the past).

This problem should however be seen in the lager contex of the meantally ill in our sociaty, we had a nutjob run into a crowd in 2009 killing 7 Link (a bit graphic)

@Shung: I also considered a FA weapon of no real advantage (dispite the 'sprayfire from the hip' nonsense from groups like the Bradys/IANSA) when attacking unarmed people, his relativly low bodycount (6 victims of wich 3 in a old people scooter) seems to reflect this. (Keep in mind that it has not been 100% confirmed that the weapon was FA). Some media are reporting he had a 'Oberland OA-15' anybody know if it easely accepts a FA lower and bolt carrier ? He also is said to have had a specter DR sight (not cheap).

AFAIK Oberland takes standard AR parts except for the grip screw and the barrel threading which are metric. I'm not sure whether Oberland uses M16 bolt-carrier groups but if they do all it takes is a full-auto (factory M16 or converted) lower. I've seen M16 lowers for sale on Egun so they're out there.

Oberland has a proprietary bolt but that one's only sold in Austria due to their peculiar laws.

Early Oberland Arrms OA15 were made by Olympic Arms and had the sear cut.
Unfortunately those older models can be converted to FA without major problems,
the parts are around and rather easy to get.

This is not a secret and can be googled by anybody.

Sooner or later they will ban our AR15's here in Europe....

I to have seen FA lowers and FA 'Deko Teile' on Egun. Never really cared much about it.

Although it has not been officially confirmed yet that it was a conversion the fact that officials say he had 3 guns with him and they are looking into if one of them was converted kind of indicates that it probably is (or the idiot watched to many bump fire vids).

I've never really understood the FA hysteria as you have a problem if somebody starts shooting with a 10/22  and you + any off duty officers  are unarmed, and the armed police have to gear up with vests etc before they are allowed to respond.

Anyway hope nothing gets banned for us, hope Germany stays relativley free as its easy for me to move there.

Oh here is a pic of the little shit

Hey, come to us.. we are only a couple hundred km away, and we've got plenty of guns ;)



My friend got a OA AR-15 (M4) and it was delivered with a FA bolt carrier... getting a FA lower and lower parts, or even modifiying a semi lower, is relatively easy.

Switzerland is fine with me, I like it alot. Sometimes I ride my motorcycle around Lake Constance.

I just don't think $20K will get me a house there....

And hows your CCW?
Kinda wonder about number of carry licences in other European countries, especialy in Netherland in relation to recent tragedy.

Carry licence the law says if you have a valid reason you can have a carry licence for self protection. So no problems there

Problem is you will never have a good reason unless you are dead. I would apply for one just for the lulz and take it to court but it would be useless to even try at this stage and it most likely would result in being banned from owning sporting guns because they would have a argument that I want to misuse my sporting guns for carry.

Off duty officers are not even trusted to CCW, armored car guards or any other security cant have a gun while on duty either (although the robbers who shot two of them badly last week dont need a CCW permit )


Update on the weapon used in the Dutch Shooting: It appears to be a Semi Auto (no type info yet)  so dont know what went on there because even the police suspected it was FA (bump fire). It diid however make for stupid idiots on internet here claiming they could make any firearm FA by taking out a spring/pin or other small item, the anti media lap this up of course.

Most stupid gun proposal: Banning gun owners form taking home ammo, with counting of empty casings by the range master and metal detectors at the exit so you cant smuggle any ammo out.

Even more stupid suggestion I've heard these days:

Equip all guns with a RFID chip and install the receiver at the range, so the firearm only works within the range and not outside...

PS. Tony, had your call on the machine. Came home really late after hooking up with Jimmy downtown. Will drive to the IPSC match in Philipsburg tonite. Will give you a sitrep tomorrow.

mainly lost that right in 1999... now it's a priviliege for rich and connected people..



lucky bastard.. Long live the Czech Republic !

Did they ever figure out what gun was used, and whether it's semi-auto or full-automatic? I'd image it robably will have implications on the public debate on gun control.

Well, we also have to show valid reason for ccw,  fortunately "I want it" is enough to get it. - As i remember, the whole "valid reason" is EU invention we didnt have before, just like "permission to purchase".
The proposal about counting the ammo "works" in India - even for cops. Mumbai attacks proved it worthless.
I hope all those BSs will end in vain.

Shung: Thats sad, but after last referendum, you might be able to bring more liberal aproach even to ccw, you have your Pro Tell right? We have been fending off many proposals of obligatory psycho-test recently, sadly Slovaks werent that successful...

p.s. I couldnt find any numbers for ccw licences in European countries. I know that in Hungary its about 10.000, over 234.000 in CZ, but others?

We had some info on the guns used but lthe police and reporters know nothing about guns so I'll give the description they gave:

-Contrary to initial reports there were no full auto guns used, the police stared the whole thing about FA though

-Ekog single barrel rifle Smith & Wesson caliber .22 long rifle. Seeing as this makes no sense whatsoever I am assuming it was the Smith & Wesson M&P15-22 (a .22LR copy of the AR-15 rifle, he could have had any center fire semi automatic rifle on his license). The Ekog part of the name probably refers to the type of scope that he had.

-Colt .45. Again not a very clear description but it would be logical that it was a 1911 type gun and not some revolver chambered in .45 long colt.

-Taurus caliber .44. Again no further details.

-He was also wearing a bulletproof vest (but committed suicide before the police could arrive).

-His primary waepon seems to have been the rifle, he used a handgun to pop himself.


From the media today I learned that a .44 (no futher description of what kind of .44 ) is used in elephant hunting..........O'RLY

On the good side there seem to be a lot of shooters holding the anti's in check in the comments section of the media outlets here. I and a couple of freinds were alreaddy doing this and we noticed quite some other shooters were doing the same.

Dont think so, best guess is pure ignorance/not understanding what the officer that actually knows about firearms was saying.

I have seen many cases of judicial stupidity regarding guns over the years.

Per example the link in Dutch

Here a Guy buys a airgun that takes 9mm pellets Link to airgun Yes big but we have no restriction on caliber or power for airguns.

Police find the gun and read 9mm and call it in to the police 'firearms expert' who states that 9mm is a firearm (without taking a look at it), this staement gets put in the case file despite the guy claiming its a airgun. In court his lawyer says it is a airgun but the judge doesnt care because there is a 'expert' statement saying it was a firearm. At some stage the police take a seccond look and conclude 'It is a firearm' (laziness or ignorance of the law). Anyway only after the guy goes to the Supreme Court does somebody wake up to the fact that is is a airgun

Here in Portland, Oregon (USA), we had a shooting outside a nightclub a few years back that was really bad.  The news media interviewed a good friend of mine who is a very noted criminal psychologist about the incident.  My friend is also firearms friendly.  

When the newscaster asked my friend what should be done about those awful firearms, he told them, that our city was fortunate that the idiot used a gun.  The newscaster asked why.  My friend said that there was a huge line of people waiting to get inside the club that night.  If the perpetrator had actually taken the time to think about how much mayhem he COULD have caused, he probably would have taken a motor vehicle up to about 60 miles per hour and aimed straight at the line of people.  The carnage that would have caused would make the use of a firearm seem minor by comparison.  Needless to say, the news station cut out the part that didn't damn firearms.  Maybe it was a good thing, because that might have given other idiots an idea they had not yet considered.

I am very sorry for the loss to the citizens where the shooting took place.  Hopefully, the society will realize that we cannot protect ourselves effectively by blaming inanimate objects for people's behavior.  My most sincere condolences.

Thanks for your condolances.
We had a crazy guy drive into a crowd on the queens birthday and he killed more people than this guy did with his gun.link to bbc story the BBC reports the attack was aimed at the queen but he guy was just a plain nutjob

Like the comedian says "Ya can't fix stupid.", I'll add, and "Ya can't fix crazy either."  Seems that people are either crazy or they aren't.  Not much middle ground apparently.

That's a huge problem. One goal of gun rights advocates here has been to try to pull the Fudds into the fold. Handgunners, hunters, and semi-auto rifle owners (of course there's a lot of overlap) have an impressive amount political power if they work together, and the anti's know it. That is why they love to say things like, "Oh, we aren't after your hunting rifle." Maybe not, but you know it's on their list––they're biding their time. "Oh we don't want to take away your handgun. We just want those nasty semi auto rifles." BS. Divide and conquer is the game. Like our Ben Franklin said, "We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Very true.

Luckily it isn't the media panic it could have been but we still have some problems

The organization of police chiefs came out today with recommendations (headed by this hotty link (but dont bother))
-That shooters should not be allowed to take ammunition out of the shooting range and no ammunition should be stored at home (this is utter nonsense but I might be buying shares in reloading companies .
-That the maximum of guns you are allowed to poses gets reduced from 5 to 3 (the shooter only had 3 guns with him so this rule seems pretty useless from the start)
-At the moment we have to shoot 18x a year to keep our license and they recommend that you have to shoot 18x a year for each gun you own (we already have to collect stamps at the range).

A second problem might be the 'Health and Safety Commission' that is doing an investigation into Dutch gun laws, a woman from our the Dutch 'Child Protection Agency' is heading the investigation and all the (recognized) independent experts I know have been rejected from taking part.

Because the criminal investigation is being done by internal affairs there has not been much information released, here what we know about the guy:

Tristan van der Vlis was a 24 year old white male who lived with his father.

-Had a firearms license and was a gun club member  [we have a extremely restrictive licensing system].

-Was a loner with no girl friend or many other social contacts.

-Was legally committed into a mental institution for a period of 10 days in 2006 for being a danger to himself (suicide).

-In 2008 he was rushed by ambulance to hospital with poisoning symptoms (I would assume attempted suicide) after four days he was released to undergo voluntary treatment by the mental health service.

-One year ago he stopped taking medicine against (what are described in the press as) hallucinations and delusional ideas [no details on what exact drugs].

-He stopped seeing his psychiatrist seven months previously. He did according to his surrounding express homicidal thoughts.

-He was still taking anti-depressants and sleeping tablets [again no details of exactly what drugs].

-The family said that he was suffering from schizophrenia and describe him hearing voices and being "touched by ghosts".