The mall shooting in Munich was carried out by an 18-year-old German-Iranian Muslim who reportedly shouted out “Allah Akbar” during his attack that killed nine, but the media want you to know that this totally had nothing to do with terrorism at all.
The lone teenager who shot dead nine people and injured 27 others in Munich had researched school killing sprees and attempted to lure victims to the scene of his rampage with an offer of free food on social media, officials have said.
Police said the 18-year-old gunman, who opened fire at a crowded shopping centre and McDonald’s restaurant on Friday evening, had been raised in Munich and was still in full-time education.
They added that he had likely been in psychiatric care and there were indicators he had been treated for depression.
Robert Heimberger, a police investigator, said on Saturday it appeared the gunman had hacked a Facebook account and lured people to the shopping centre with an offer of free food.
The post, sent from a young woman’s account, urged people to come to McDonald’s at 4pm, saying: “I’ll give you something if you want, but not too expensive.”
“It appears it was prepared by the suspect and then sent out,” Heimberger said.
The gunman, who has been named locally as A__ S___*, is said to have researched mass-casualty attacks and had an obsession with shooting sprees like the massacre five years ago by the Norwegian rightwing fanatic A___ B___ B___.
The attack was carried out on the fifth anniversary of the Norwegian mass killing at a youth camp. Seven of the nine victims in Munich were teenagers.
The suspect somehow acquired a Glock 9mm pistol with a defaced serial number and 300 rounds of ammunition. I’m quite curious as to how a teenager on public assistance could acquire a handgun in Germany, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world, but is still thought to have up to 39.5 million illegal firearms on the black market (dwarfing the 5.5 million legal, registered firearms).
Shooting in #Munich shopping mall #OEZ!! People running away to seek shelter!! pic.twitter.com/PB189s6RQy
— Thamina Stoll (@thaminastoll) July 22, 2016
Amazingly, the murderer got into a 90-second argument with another German man, who cursed out the murderer as the murderer claims his attack is revenge for years of being bullied.
The U.K. Daily News has a transcript of the exchange. It’s unclear whether the man who argued with the killer was consciously trying to distract him so that people could flee the area, or whether he was just ticked off. It is clear that the 90-second delay in the rampage did allow many people to escape.
The Munich attack frankly seems to be a hybrid of a school shooting and an Islamic terrorist attack in terms of targets, methodology, and motives, leaning more towards a school shooting (revenge for being bullied by other kids).
I’m sure we’ll see more on this story as the situation develops.
* Bearing Arms does not publish the names of mass or spree killers.
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