Another School Shooting, This Time in Russia

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The United States has some of the most lax gun laws in the world, and as a consequence, it is by far the world leader in gun ownership with an astounding 120 guns per every one hundred individuals in the country.   Canada is second with just 32 guns per every hundred individuals.  The United States is also a leader in gun deaths, coming in second  only behind Brazil.  And because of the prevalence of guns in our society, the United States is far-and-away the world leader in school shootings.  Between January of 2009 and May of 2018 the US experienced 288 school shootings, and Mexico placed second in during that same time period with a total of only eight.

But guns and violence are spreading, and one place where the phenomena of gun violence is on the increase is in the very authoritarian country of Russia.  This week Russia experienced its third deadly school shooting in the past two years.

A gunman killed seven children at a school in Kazan, Russia - the capital of the Tatarstan Republic - in May of 2021.  Five months after that twenty people were killed when an assailant set off a bomb and then began shooting at a college in Russian-occupied Crimea.

Now another Russian school shooting has taken place, this one in School 88 in the large Russian city of Izhevsk, the capital of the Russia region of Udmurthia.   Izhevsk has a history with weaponry.  It is the home of the AK-47 rifle and the residence of the weapon's developer, Soviet Lieutenant General Mikhail Kalashnikov.

The 34-year-old shooter, Artem Kazantsev, who was an alumni of the school, shot and killed fifteen individuals, including eleven children, and also wounded several others who were mostly students.  He died by suicide at the scene.  News reports indicate that the shooter, Kazantsev, was wearing a helmet and a black tee-shirt with Nazi insignia at the time of the attack.

Russia is currently bogged down in its military assault on Ukraine, dealing with draft resistors trying to flee the country, and now struggling to protect its schools.    The country seems to be emulating the West in ways that its political reformers never envisioned.