The killing spree with eight dead in Hamburg in March could probably have been prevented. At least that's what the state of the investigation published by the Prosecutor General's Office there suggests. According to this, an employee of the weapons authority is said to have received concrete information about his unstable mental state from a member of a sports shooting club from the family of the later shooter.
Instead of giving his supervisor the whistleblower and background, he is said to have faked an anonymous letter. That was not enough to deprive the man of the murder weapon. Weeks later, he used it to shoot seven people in a place of worship belonging to Jehovah's Witnesses before killing himself.
Fictitious testimonies
Even worse is the suspicion that the perpetrator was issued a certificate of competence to carry a firearm "blank" by three members of an examination board of the sports shooting club. In fact, he hadn't passed the exam at all. In other cases, too, false testimonies were apparently circulated, which made it possible for people to obtain weapons.
SPD Interior Senator Andy Grote had asserted that the weapons authority could not have prevented the terrible act. Rather, gun laws would have to be tightened. It would now be time for Grote to admit the failure of his agency – and take political responsibility.