Austria's chancellor vows to toughen gun laws after a deadly school
shooting
[June 17, 2025]
By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER and PHILIPP JENNE
VIENNA (AP) — Austria will toughen its gun laws, its chancellor said
Monday, after a 21-year-old former student killed nine students and a
teacher at his school last week in what's considered the Alpine
country's deadliest post-war attack.
The shooting had sparked a debate about Austria's gun laws, which are
among the more liberal in the European Union. The assailant in Graz used
a shotgun and a pistol which he owned legally, police said shortly after
the attack.
“Access to weapons must be regulated even more responsibly in Austria,”
Christian Stocker said during a speech in Parliament in Vienna.
The new laws will include “stricter eligibility requirements for gun
ownership and restrictions for certain risk groups,” the chancellor
said, adding that data-sharing between the different authorities would
be improved as well.
“In the future, wherever an individual risk situation is identified,
consequences under firearms law must be drawn automatically,” Stocker
said.
The chancellor said his Cabinet would pass the new measures later this
week but didn't give any further details.
However, on Saturday, Stocker told public broadcaster ORF that
toughening the laws could include raising the minimum age for gun
buyers.
In the school shooting Tuesday at the BORG Dreierschützengasse high
school in Graz, nine students were killed — six girls and three boys
aged between 14 and 17 — as well as a teacher. Another 11 people were
wounded. The attacker killed himself in a bathroom of his former school.
Traditionally, many in Austria hold weapons, which they often use to go
hunting in the Alpine country’s vast forests. In general, it’s more
common to carry a weapon for that and less for self-defense.
According to the Small Arms Survey, Austria ranks 12th in the world when
it comes to holding civilian firearms, with 30 firearms per 100
residents. That’s far less than in the U.S. which tops the ranking with
120 firearms per 100 residents, but more than Austria’s neighbor
Germany, which ranked 23rd with 19 firearms per 100 residents.
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People commemorate the victims of a shooting at a school, where a
former student opened fire two days before, at the central square in
Graz, Austria, Thursday, June 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)
In Austria, some weapons, such as rifles and shotguns that must be
reloaded manually after each shot, can be purchased from the age of
18 without a permit. Gun dealers only need to check if there’s no
weapons ban on the buyer, and the weapon is added to the central
weapons register.
Other weapons, such as repeating shotguns or semi-automatic
firearms, are more difficult to acquire. Buyers need a gun ownership
card and a firearms pass.
Austria Press Agency has reported that the suspect had a gun
ownership card, but this document merely entitles a holder to
acquire and possess, but not to carry weapons such as the handgun.
That weapon also would have required a firearm pass.
In his speech on Monday, the chancellor also announced that all
schools in the country would get more long-term psychological
support for students and that police would increase their presence
in front of schools until the end of the school year this summer.
In addition, Stocker said, the government will create a compensation
fund “that will make it possible to help the affected families
quickly and unbureaucratically — for example with funeral costs,
psychological care or other urgently needed support services.”
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Grieshaber reported from Berlin.
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