April 9, 2011

Dutch Shooting


Shocking news today here in Holland. A disturbed person with an automatic rifle killed 7 people (so far) and wounded 15 more (some are in critical condition) in a mall in the town of 'Alphen aan den Rijn.' Apparently 24 year-old Tristan van der Vlis was responsible for the shooting. He committed suicide. There are pictures of his remains which I wont put up here on this blog. He was wearing camouflage trousers and a black sweater. Sources mention he was no stranger to the police and one of his previous felonies was possession of a firearm and abuse of his girlfriend. What really motivated him is anyones guess.

It's just mind-blowing to see these kinds of outbursts of violence. Last week there was mass murder in a school in Rio. 2 years ago in Holland, a person by the name of Karst Tates tried to kill the Royal Family with his car. He didn't succeed in that yet did manage to kill 8 people when driving his car through the crowd that was watching the (Royal) parade. I'm having a hard time fathoming why these things happen. What drives these people to go so very wrong? Professional psychologists really should look into this and do studies on it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

When they strawed by juxtaposing his actions alongside The United States, that made me flinch.

Ed V. said...

Although in the U.S. people have easy access to guns compared to other nations, these kinds of problems seem to be global.