From Dunblane to Graz: A history of school shootings in Europe

A school shooting in the Austrian city of Graz has left at least 10 people dead, marking the deadlist incidet of its kind in the country in recent decades. The tragedy has shocked Austria, where firearm violence in educational settings is rare.

According to public broadcaster ORF, there have been four recorded incidents involving fireamrs at Austrian schools since 1993. None, however, resulted in more than one fatality — excluding the perpetrator — until now. 

Similar incidents on school or college campuses have occured elsewhere in Europe over the last few decades — several of which led to policy shifts.

High profile school shootings in Europe

When a shooter killed 16 children, aged between five and six, in the Scottish town of Dunblane in 1996, the UK government swiftly banned private ownership of handguns.

German lawmakers raised the age limit for gun ownership and mandated random spot checks on gun owners to ensure they were storing guns according to regulations after mass shootings in the 2000s.

In 2002, expelled19-year-old student Robert Steinhäuser opened fire at a school in Erfurt, killing 12 teachers, two students, a secretary and a policewoman, before killing himself. Then seven years later in the town of Winnenden, in southern Germany, a 17-year-old shot and killed 15 students, teachers and passers-by inside and near his former school. He was later killed in a shoot-out with police.

In Serbia, authorities introduced spot checks at gun-owners' homes and launched an amnesty for unregistered firearms after a 13-year-old boy gunned down eight of his fellow pupils and a security guard at a primary school in the middle-class Belgrade district of Vracar in May 2023. The suspect was arrested soon after.

And in December of the same year, a 24-year-old student killed 14 people at a university in Prague with a gun he legally owned. The gunman was killed at the scene, possibly by one of his own bullets. Czech lawmakers are now in the process of tightening firearms laws, according to reporting by the Associated Press.

A massacre at a university in Prague shocked the Czech Republic in late 2023 and prompted nationwide reflection on gun lawsImage: Gabriel Kuchta/Getty Images

Far fewer school shootings than the US

Massacres in schools or education settings remain rare in Europe compared to the United States. Though no direct comparison data on schools is available, research by the Rockefeller Institute of Government shows the US has suffered far more "public mass shootings" than countries with similar levels of economic development.

Such incidents are defined by the New York-based think tank as involving "at least some victims who were targeted at random and/or for their symbolic value," excluding cases of state-sponsored violence or organized terrorism.

According to their research, 109 such incidents were recorded in the US between 2000 and 2022, compared to six in France, five in Germany, three in Finland, and two in the UK, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland during the same time period.

"While there are a multitude of factors contributing to these attacks, studies find the higher rate of public mass shootings in America is associated, at least in part, with less restrictive firearm laws and higher rates of civilian firearm ownership relative to many other countries," criminologist Jason R. Silva wrote in a research blog for the institute last year.

Gun ownership rates are far higher in the US than in EuropeImage: Lynne Sladky/AP Images/picture alliance

In the European Union, the bloc's central executive inBrussels sets minimum regulations on owning and using guns across its 27 member states, which include Austria and Germany. National governments can choose to beef up the baseline rules with tougher measures. 

Though rates vary across Europe, the number of guns remains substantially lower than in the US. According to the Small Arms Survey, there were an estimated 120.5 civilian firearms per 100 people in the US in 2017. That figure was 4.6 in England and Wales, and 19.6 in both France and Germany. The estimate for Austria was 30 per 100 people, while Serbia ranked highest in Europe at 39.1.

Tributes were laid in 2024 after a 17-year-old stabbed three young girls to death at a dance class in the English town of Southport Image: James Speakman/PA Wire/picture alliance

Deadly knife attacks also claim children's lives in Europe

Though shootings remain rare in Europe, knife attacks at schools are more common. France has seen a spate of school stabbings in recent years, including a teaching assistant who wasstabbed to death by a student in northeastern France on Monday.

In October 2023, a man who was under surveillance for suspected Islamist radicalizationstabbed a teacher to death at the school he previously attended in the Northern French town of Arras — according to reporting by Le Monde newspaper. And in a case which shocked France in 2020, an 18-year-old beheaded French teacher Samuel Paty outside his school near Paris.

In the UK, riots took place in multiple cities across the country last year after false information spread online about a 17-year-old who stabbed three girls aged six to nine to death at a dance class in Southport.

And in Germany,  state prosecutors charged a 17-year-old with four counts of attempted murder after a knife attack at a high school in the city of Wuppertal in February.

A knife-wieldingattacker killed a seven-year-old child and injured several others​​​​​​​at a primary school in the Croatian capital Zagreb last December, while a student and a teacher were stabbed to death at a secondary school in northern Slovakia in January of this year.